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THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 


WORKS   BY 
DR.   WILLIAM    BARRY 

Bearing  on  the  Causes  of  the  War 


HERALDS    OF   REVOLT.     European 
Literature  from  Goetbe  to  Nietzsche 

ERNEST  RENAN    )  Second  Empire  and  the 
THE  DAYSPRING  )       Commune  of  1871 

THE  NEW  ANTIGONE.     The  Inter- 
national and  Russia 

ARDEN  MASSITER.   Rome,  Italy,  and 
the  Battle  of  Adowa 

THE  PAPACY  AND  MODERN  TIMES. 

Last  Period  of  The  Temporal  Power 


THE 

WORLD'S  DEBATE 

An  Historical  Defence 
of  the  Allies 


BY 

WILLIAM  BARRY 


^Magnus  ah  integro  scBclorum  nascitur  ordo' 
Virgil:  Eclogue  iv. 


GEORGE  H.  DORAN  COMPANY 
NEW  YORK 

PUBLISHERS  IX  AMERICA  FOR  HODDER  &  STOUGHTOxN 


3-^   n  r^  >^ 


Gibbon,  concluding  the  story  of  the  Crusades,  has 
these  words — 

"By  the  command  of  the  Sultan,  the  churches  and 
fortifications  of  the  Latin  cities  were  demoUshed;  a 
motive  of  avarice  or  fear  still  opened  the  Holy  Sep- 
ulchre to  some  devout  and  defenceless  pilgrims;  and  a 
mournful  and  solitary  silence  prevailed  along  the  coast 
which  had  so  long  resounded  with  the  World's  Debate." 

Decline  and  Fall  of  the  Roman  Empire,  vol.  vii,  chap, 
lix,  p.  277. 


3 1 


TO 

HIS  MAJESTY,  ALBERT,  KING  OF  THE 
BELGIANS: 

AND   TO 

HIS  EMINENCE,  CARDINAL  JVIERCIER, 
ARCHBISHOP  OF  MALINES: 

WITH  PROFOUND  HOMAGE, 
AND  HOPE  UNDISMAYED. 


Belgium,  unhappiest  of  all  ccnquered  lands. 
But  happy  still  in  the  unconquered  soul 
Of  thy  true  King,  whose  daring  self-control 

Affronts  the  flame,  scorn  thou  its  burning  brands. 

Look  where  thy  Cardinal  lifts  holy  hands. 

Pleading  to  righteous  Heaven;  and  in  the  scroll 
Of  Martyrs  count  him,  while  thy  sons  pay  toll 

To  death  undaunted;  God  will  break  thy  bands. 

Belgium,  be  proud  of  Cardinal  and  King; 
Sceptre  and  crozier  have  served  thee  well; 
They  reign  who  thus  do  serve;  and  thou  shalt  sing 
Thy  Chant  of  Honour,  rising  from  the  Hell 
\Miich  tries  thy  gold  in  fire;  may  Freedom's  wing 

Lift  thee  to  heights  where  Peace  and  Justice  dwell! 


TO  THE  READER 


MY  apology  for  adding  another  book  to 
the  literature  of  the  War,  and  my  drift 
in  so  doing,  are  indicated  on  the  title-page,  but 
will  bear  a  little  more  expansion,  if  you,  dear 
Unknown,  permit  riie  to  keep  you  one  moment 
on  the  threshold  while  I  welcome  you  in. 

This  volume  I  offer  you  is  a  record  and  a 
witness.  It  tells  in  sharp  outline,  yet  I  believe 
accurately,  what  were  the  contrasted  ideals 
and  the  facts  of  history  out  of  which  our  most 
searching,  but  not  less  hopeful,  situation  has 
come  to  be.  And  those  who,  like  myself, 
have  passed  a  long  life  in  making  acquaintance 
with  such  facts  and  ideals,  are  bound  in  my 
opinion  to  share  their  information  among  the 
many  not  so  fortunate  in  their  studies,  and 
consequently  bewildered  by  a  sudden  call  to 
spend  property,  life — ^yea,  all  they  possess — in 
defence  of  a  Cause  only  faintly  discernible  to 
them.  I  condense  and  I  explain  the  series  of 
events  on  two  lines — the  one  starting  from 
Catholic  England,  the  other  from  old  heathen 


viii  TO  THE  READER 

Prussia,  both  crossing  at  length  Hke  swords  in 
battle,  to  decide  which  shall  be  the  victorious 
path  of  the  future.  So  far  as  I  am  aware, 
this  particular  effort  at  enlightenment  has  not 
been  attempted,  or  on  a  scale  so  large  that  the 
summing  up  is  yet  wanting. 

But  when  I  oppose  Catholic  England  to 
heathen  Prussia,  my  own  point  of  sight  is 
fixed.  And  you,  my  excellent  reader,  may 
feel  surprise  when  I  assure  you  that  the 
principles  for  which  the  Allies  are  pouring  out 
their  blood  and  lavishing  their  treasure,  bear 
the  closest  affinity  to  our  principles — I  mean 
to  the  constant  tradition  of  the  Roman 
Church.  Nevertheless,  proof  and  instance  are 
not  far  to  seek.  The  Gospel  gives  to  Csesar 
the  things  that  are  Caesar's;  but  from  Caesar 
it  withholds  the  things  of  God.  In  our  Catholic 
creed  there  has  never  been  room  for  the  Abso- 
lute State ;  and  never  will  such  room  be  found. 
Hence,  if  the  Middle  Ages  are  identified  (as  in 
common  talk  and  writing  is  almost  always  the 
case)  with  Catholicism,  nothing  can  be  more 
misleading  than  to  fasten  the  pretensions, 
crimes  and  philosophy  of  modern  Germany  on 
something  described  as  "medieval."  Journal- 
ists do  this  because  they  are  too  busy  to  explore 
beyond  the  nearest  hill.    But  the  Middle  Ages 


TO  THE  READER  ix 

might  pretty  well  be  defined  as  the  period  dur- 
ing which  the  Holy  See  fought  on  behalf  of 
freedom  against  the  Absolute  State,  imperson- 
ated in  a  succession  of  German  Emperors  from 
Henry  IV  to  Louis  of  Bavaria.  The  Absolute 
State  took  to  itself  its  gi-eat  power  and  reigned 
in  the  eminently  modern  time  which  we  call 
the  Renaissance.  Names  and  facts  bear  me 
out.  The  Roman  Church  has  numbered 
among  the  Saints  her  own  Gregory  VII,  who 
deposed  the  Franconian  Henry  IV.  She  has 
canonised  Thomas  a  Becket,  Archbishop  of 
Canterbury,  long  venerated  as  champion  of 
Church  and  People  until  Henry  VIII  con- 
demned him  of  high  treason  and  destroyed  his 
shrine.  She  has  raised  to  her  altars  in  our 
days  Thomas  More,  the  author  of  Utopia, 
martyr  in  defence  of  Christian  citizenship  and 
old  English  freedom.  And  she  calls  Joan  of 
Arc  blessed,  the  Maid  whose  mission  to  de- 
liver France  from  an  alien  yoke  is  thereby 
consecrated  for  ever. 

Now,  if  there  must  needs  be  divisions,  we 
may  strive  at  least  to  get  rid  of  misunder- 
standings; and  that  is  my  chief  aim  in  the 
following  pages.  Born  a  Catholic,  it  was  my 
fortune  to  live  and  move  from  childhood  in 
the  company  of  men  and  women  whose  faith 


X  TO  THE  READER 

differed  from  mine  —  Anglicans,  Dissenters, 
Liberals  of  many  schools  of  thought;  and  I 
speak  of  all  these  as  I  learnt  to  know  them, 
not  on  hearsay.  I  know  England  too;  and 
with  Cardinal  Manning  I  would  affirm  that  in 
our  laws  and  institutions,  going  back  to  King 
Alfred  and  Edward  the  Confessor,  we  shall 
detect  a  spirit,  a  character,  and  a  tendency 
to  ordered  freedom,  which  are  profoundly 
Catholic.  We  are  fighting  that  this  inherited 
liberty  of  the  Christian  and  the  citizen  may 
not  be  sacrificed  to  the  Absolute  State,  which 
is  Paganism  armed  with  modern  weapons  and 
invoking,  as  Heine  prophesied  that  one  day  it 
would,  its  old  heathen  gods  to  pull  down  our 
sanctuaries  in  ruin. 

Thus  I  wrote  in  substance  ere  beginning  my 
first  chapter,  on  Lady  Day,  March  25,  1917. 
Now  my  last  pages  are  out  of  hand ;  but  I  feel 
that  the  half  has  not  been  told.  Autocracy  in 
its  assault  on  Democracy  was  my  subject;  but 
my  hope  was  to  prove  by  facts  and  history 
two  things:  first,  that  Absolute  Power  is 
doomed,  and  this  I  show  to  the  conviction  of 
all  who  believe  in  evidence  allowed  to  tell  its 
own  tale;  and,  in  the  second  place,  that  De- 
mocracy and  Christianity  ought  to  recognise 


TO  THE  READER  xi 

each  other  as  by  origin  and  spirit  of  the  same 
nature.  My  conclusion  would  have  been 
"Justitia  et  Pax  osculate  sunt"  ("Justice  and 
Peace  have  kissed"). 

It  is  my  conclusion;  none  can  overlook 
it  in  the  brief  "lyrical  cry"  with  which 
The  World's  Debate  ends.  Moreover,  it  runs 
through  the  volume  like  the  "deep  andante 
moving  in  a  bass  of  sorrow" — such  sorrow 
as  might  reconcile  worse  misunderstandings 
than  the  quarrel  between  those  who,  to 
my  profound  grief,  are  estranged,  seem- 
ingly, by  their  very  ideals.  But  matters  so 
grew  on  me,  and  events  came  so  thronging, 
to  prove  the  first  half  of  my  contention,  that 
I  had  to  leave  the  second  shining  like  the 
Cross  in  mid-air — the  Cross  that  appeared  to 
Constantine — when  I  would  fain  have  shared 
it  as  a  Sacrament  of  healing  with  my  readers. 
That  Democracy  by  itself  is  an  outward  sign, 
needing  to  be  filled  and  consecrated  with 
Christ's  redeeming  gi*ace,  I  have  ever  held. 
I  hold  it  now.  Should  the  time  be  given, 
I  would  endeavour  to  teach  the  youthful 
generation,  who  must  take  up  our  inherit- 
ance, that  on  the  Seven  Sacraments  a  perfect 
Humanity  may  be  trained  to  this  life  and  to 
that   which   is   to   come.     But  now   I   invite 


xii  TO  THE  READER 

them  to  read  a  little  history,  by  way  of  learn- 
ing how  the  twentieth  century  has  opened 
with  a  cataclysm  in  which  the  old  world  went 
down. 

One  word  more.  I  have  spoken  all  along 
in  the  first  person,  as  a  spectator  of  the  scenes 
through  which  my  life  passed.  I  could  have 
taken  the  anonymous  tone  of  science.  But 
he  that  has  beheld  men  and  cities,  and  dwelt 
in  lands  across  the  sea,  may  be  allowed  this 
privilege.  It  is  easier  to  read  him;  and  for 
myself  I  look  upon  it  as  a  duty  here  and  now 
to  set  my  name  as  a  witness  to  the  testi- 
mony I  am  giving.  The  cause  of  the  Allies — 
and  I  mean  it  as  upheld  in  especial  by  the 
British  Empire,  the  United  States,  France, 
and  Italy — is  the  cause  of  Right  and  of  true 
Civilisation.  I  pray  for  its  victory  and  its 
reign.    Esto  perpetual 

William  Barry. 

Leamington^ 

May  lU  1917. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 

ON  the  origin  of  the  War,  consult  official  "White" 
and  other  Books  issued  by  the  respective  Govern- 
ments. The  German  has  been  carefully  manipulated, 
and  is  not  trustworthy. 

On  problems  discussed  here  (besides  works  mentioned 
in  text)  a  selection  varying  greatly  m  value  but  more 
or  less  illustrative  of  the  current  Uterature  follows  in 
alphabetical  order. 

Bailey,  W.  F.  :  The  Slavs  of  the  War  Zone. 
Bain,  R.  Nisbet:  The  First  Romanovs,  etc. 
" Balkanicus  " :  The  Aspirations  of  Bulgaria. 
Bernhardi,  F.  v.  :  Germany  and  the  Next  War,  etc. 
Bloch,  J.  S. :  Modern  Weapons  and  Modern  Warfare. 
Buchan,  John:  "Nelsons"  History  of  the  War. 
BtJLOW,  Prince  v.  :  Imperial  Germany. 
Cramb,  J.  A. :  Germany  and  England. 
Dillon,  E.  J. :  ^  Scrap  of  Paper. 
DiMNET,  E.:  France  Herself  Again. 
Fitzmaurice,  Lord  :  Life  of  Lord  Granville. 
Gardner,  M.  :  Poland;  Adam  Mickiewicz. 
Halsalle,  H.  de:  Degenerate  Germany. 
"How  THE  War  Began":  Daily  Telegraph. 
Johannet,  R.  :  Pan-Germanism  versus  Christendom. 
KiDD,  B,:  Principles  of  Western  Civilization. 


xiv  BIBLIOGRAPHY 

KiioPOTKiN,  P. :  Memoirs  of  a  Revolutionist,  etc. 

Lequeux,  W.  :  The  Invasion,  etc. 

Morgan,  J.  H.:  The  German  War  Book;  War,  Its 
Conduct,  etc. 

MuiR,  Ramsay:  Nationalism  and  Internationalism. 

Oliver,  F.  S.  :  Ordeal  by  Battle. 

Pares,  B.  :  Russia  and  Reform. 

Pears,  Sir  E.  :  Forty  Years  at  Constantinople,  etc. 

Polish  Information  Committee:  The  Case  for 
Poland's  Independence. 

Sarolea,  C:  The  Anglo-German  Problem;  How  Bel- 
gium Saved  Europe,  etc. 

Sladen,  D.:  The  Truth  about  Germany;  Confessions 
of  Frederick  the  Great. 

Soloviev,  V. :  War,  Progress,  and  the  End  of  History. 

Sykes,  Sir  M.  :  The  Caliph's  Last  Heritage;  Dar- 
Islam. 

Treitschke,  H.  v.  :  History  of  Germany  in  Nineteenth 
Century;  Life  of  Frederick  the  Great. 

Usher,  R.  G.  :  Pan-Germanism. 

Watson,  Seton:  Teuton,  Slav,  and  Magyar. 

Wile,  W.  :  Men  Around  the  Kaiser,  etc. 

Zangwill,  I. :  The  Principle  of  Nationalities. 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  I 

PAGE 

The  Roots  of  Anarchy 1-24 

To-Day  born  of  Yesterday — October  24,  1648,  to  January 
30,  1649 — Present  War  sprang  from  these  Hundred 
Days — Treaty  of  Westphalia — Execution  of  Charles  I — 
Doom  of  Holy  Roman  Empire — Luther  and  Albert  of 
Brandenburg,  or,  Prophet  and  Sword — The  Caesar- 
Pontiff — This  the  Quarrel  between  Rome  and  Berlin — 
As  also  between  the  Nations  and  Germany — Europe 
after  the  Reformation — Macaulay  on  Losses  and  Gains 
of  the  Catholic  Church — Outcome:  Latin  Christendom 
narrowed.  Age  of  Despots  flourishes — But  England  be- 
gins War  of  Freedom. 

CHAPTER  II 

How  England  Solved  Her  Kaiser-problem  .     25-44 

The  "red  star,  Tyrannicide"  from  Charles  I  to  Archduke 
Franz  Ferdinand — Tragedy  of  the  King's  Evil — Law  of 
Tribe  and  Law  of  Justice — Milton  praises  the  "Sentence 
of  a  Legal  Judicature" — Charles  Stuart  and  William  II 
hallucinated  by  Dream  of  Di\'ine  Right — Milton's  "De- 
fence of  the  English  People" — This  Nation  discovers 
(1628-1688)  the  Balance  of  Obedience  and  Authority — 
Kaiserism,  a  crowned  and  sceptred  Unfaith — The  King 
rules  by  Law,  not  by  Will — Regicide  no  Remedy — The 
British  Constitution  become  a  World-Pattern — Lead- 
ing the  Nations  to  Victory. 

CHAPTER  III 
Prussia's  Rise  and  Claim  to  "Kultur"    .     45-67 

Tribute  to  my  German  Master  and  to  the  Germany  I  know 
— Modern  Prussia  is  not  that  Germany — Outside  the 
Western  or  Roman  Civilisation — Heine's  absurd  Eng- 
lish "man-machine" — Carlyle's  account  of  the  Prussian 


xvi  CONTENTS 


PAGE 

origins — "Unsmiling  Pomerania" — The  Burgrave  of 
Ntirnberg  grows  into  the  Electorate  of  Brandenburg  and 
makes  himself  a  king  (1417-1701) — Frederick  the  Great 
sums  the  story — Teuton  against  Roman — Distinguish 
Civilisation,  Bildung,  Kultur — Aristotle  defines  the 
first,  Goethe  the  second,  what  is  the  third? — Reply,  Kul- 
tur is  mechanism  made  perfect — Prussia  the  War-State 
of  Europe  as  Sparta  the  War-State  of  Hellas — Carlyle 
the  apologist  of  Prussian  Kultur;  let  us  look  at  the  Facts. 

CHAPTER  IV 

The  Royal  Caste  and  Realism  in  Politics    .     68-89 

Carlyle's  "Frederick"  a  national  Disaster — Macaulay 
gives  the  Verdict  of  Conscience  on  Prussian  perfidy  as 
"reason  of  State" — The  Great  Elector's  "spiral  move- 
ments" with  "private  aim  sun-clear  to  him" — German 
princely  "Pacts,"  sale  of  peoples,  brutalising  of  soldiers 
— The  heart  of  Prussian  Kultur  is  moral  cowardice — 
Slave-States  and  Royal  Caste — "Happy  Austria,  wed"; 
Maria  Theresa's  thirty-nine  Titles,  not  yet  Empress — 
The  Failure  of  Austria — "Savage  Prussia,  strike  hard" 
— Remarkable  Retrospect  and  Prospect  in  1773 — Fred- 
erick the  Great  founds  modern  Germany  in  Seven  Years 
War — But  so  does  Napoleon,  whom  "old  Fritz"  did  not 
anticipate — Their  politician  was  Machiavel,  their  phil- 
osopher Hobbes — The  Absolute  State. 

CHAPTER  V 
From  Napoleon  to  Bismarck     ....     90-111 

Attempted  suicide  of  Europe  since  1914 — Problem  of 
Feudalism,  Democracy,  Religion — Course  of  historj^  as 
reflected  in  Frederick,  Napoleon,  Washington,  all  con- 
temporaries— The  outcome  of  French  Revolutionary 
Wars— The  Congress  of  Vienna  (1814-1815)— Reign  of 
Metternich  till  1848 — Thirty  Years  lost  to  Freedom — 
Prussia's  Feudal  Autocracy — The  HohenzoUern  "Leg- 
end"— Growth  of  Pan-German  feeling — Prussia's  En- 
largement in  1815— Lethargy  of  British  and  French 
Statesmen — The  "Year  of  Revolutions,"  1848 — Days  of 
Frankfort — German  Liberals  fail  utterly — Bismarck's 
apprenticeship. 

CHAPTER  VI 

Reaction  Finds  its  Captain-General     .     112-139 

The  European  situation  in  1862;  policy  of  Napoleon  III 
and  of  Queen  Victoria — Bismarck's  Contest  with  Prus- 


CONTENTS  xvii 


PAGE 


sian  Parliament;  the  "possible  Strafford"  wins — Last 
period  of  History  from  1794  to  1914  has  five  stages: 
Napoleon  I,  Metternich,  Napoleon  III,  Bismarck,  Em- 
peror William  II — Britain's  action  dictated  by  its  Em- 
pire; yet  by  the  "Custom  of  England"  it  would  never 
stand  a  Tyrant  of  Europe — The  Crimean  War  as  an  il- 
lustration— Napoleon  "the  Little"  a  hybrid  of  Liberal 
and  Autocrat;  he  did  not  make  Italy  and  he  led  to  Sedan 
— Bismarck  the  "Man  of  Iron";  forecasts  policy  at 
Frankfort;  compared  with  Metternich — Dominates 
King  William;  means  to  supplant  Austria;  Wins  the 
Elbe  Duchies  and  seaboard  for  Prussia — Schleswig- 
Holstein  seizure  a  prelude  to  the  Great  War — Queen 
Victoria  follows  her  dead  Husband's  policy. 

CHAPTER  VII 

Austria,  Rome,  and  France — The  Crisis  of 

THE  Century 140-167 

Bismarck  secures  Russia  by  helping  to  coerce  Poland  in 
1863 — He  entangles  Napoleon  III  at  Biarritz — In  1861 
the  Tsar  emancipates  the  Russian  serfs,  and  Lincoln 
opens  the  American  War  of  Liberation — Austria,  though 
"ramshackle,"  survives — The  Seven  Weeks  War  (1866) 
— Hyde  Park  palings  thrown  down — Bismarck  under- 
takes to  ruin  France — Napoleon's  troubles  in  Mexico 
and  Italy — French  victory  at  Montana  makes  Vatican 
Council  possible — My  first  visit  to  Paris;  three  views  of 
the  Tuileries  Gardens — A  tribute  to  Rome  and  Italy, 
"Salve,  magna  parens!" — Rome  in  various  lights — 
1870,  the  climacteric  year  of  the  nineteenth  century — 
The  Vatican  Council — Bismarck  understood  neither 
Catholicism  nor  Democracy — War  declared  by  France 
— The  "Terrible  Year" — Third  Republic — Scenes  from 
the  Fall  of  Rome  and  end  of  the  Temporal  Power — 
Britain  looks  on. 

CHAPTER  VIII 
The  Bismarckian  Era 168-191 

Ruskin  on  the  German  character — Bismarck's  Peace 
meant  an  enduring  "state  of  war" — England  protects 
Belgium — What  was  the  Commune  of  1871,  according 
to  Ruskin? — The  "Red  Week"  of  May,  and  burning  of 
Paris — SociaHsts,  Communists,  Nihilists — England's 
mistake — Bismarck's  three  games  of  chess  all  succeed— 
Germany  wakes  to  the  Pan-German  idea — Turkish  Mis- 
rule ;  Disraeli  refuses  the  Berlin  Memorandum ;  why? — 
Russo-Turkish  War;  Treaties  of  San  Stefano  and  Berlin; 
"Peace  with  Honour"  meant  Balkan  troubles  and  wars 


xviii  CONTENTS 


PAGE 

down  to  the  Great  War,  itself  included — Sunday,  March 
13,  1881,  sees  Alexander  II  shattered  in  Petersburg — 
Great  Social  Movement  all  over  Europe — Bismarck 
fails  in  his  Kulturkampf  with  Rome;  finds  Leo  XIII 
more  than  his  match;  goes  to  Canossa — His  Fall. 

CHAPTER  IX 

Enter  Kaiser  Wilhelm 192-212 

The  new  Emperor's  obsessions  and  "wild  dedication"  of 
himself  "to  unpath'd- waters" — Imperial  bagman  on  be- 
half of  the  Reich,  but  in  the  grand  style — The  Pan-Ger- 
man idea  becomes  explicit  and  paramount — German 
Socialism  made  a  hghtning-conductor — "I  will  be 
Saviour  of  my  People" — Peaceful  penetration  of  Free- 
Trade  Britain — The  War  proves  Pan-Germanism  not  an 
idle  dream — Immense  prosperity  of  the  Fatherland — 
The  Boer  War,  prelude  to  present  Armageddon — Jame- 
son Raid  and  Kruger  Telegram — Foreign  opinion  dead 
against  England;  who  pays? — Queen  Victoria  passes, 
and  with  her  the  Europe  we  have  knowTi — The  Kaiser 
spies  and  plans. 

CHAPTER  X 

The  Matter  of  Britain 213-235 

Peace  in  South  Africa — Prophecy  after  the  Event — Ed- 
ward VII  ends  the  Isolation  of  England — Dangers  fore- 
seen but  not  heeded — The  King's  action  construed  by 
Berlin  logic  as  an  attack  on  Germany — France  appar- 
ently going  down — Anti-militarism — The  Teutons 
charge  on  others  the  crimes  they  themselves  commit; — 
Louvain  as  instance — Bismarck's  foreign  and  colonial 
policy — From  1903  the  Kaiser  prepares  a  "brutal  of- 
fensive"— Drum-fire  of  phrases,  Navy  League,  and  to 
wrest  the  trident  from  Britain  stupendous  naval  esti- 
mates, with  Heligoland  as  new  Gibraltar,  and  Kiel  Canal 
finished — Preliminary  invasion  of  our  lands  and  waters 
— British  Cabinets,  despite  warnings,  refuse  to  get  ready 
— Inviting  aggression — Tardy  North  Sea  Fleet  inade- 
quate; Rosyth,  voted  in  1905,  still  not  completed  in 
1914;  Forth  and  Clyde  Canal  not  to  be  at  all — This  was 
Britain's  assault  on  Germany  when  war  broke  upon  us. 

CHAPTER  XI 

Lightning  out  of  the  East      ....     236-260 

The  Kaiser  as  protector  of  Moslems,  and  in  effect  suzerain 
of  Abdul  Hamid  in  1898— Teutons  and  Turks— The 
Young  Turks  and  "Huriyeh" — Austria,  violating  Ber- 


CONTENTS  xlx 


PAGE 

lin  Treaty,  annexes  Bosnia  and  Herzegovina  in  1908; 
while  the  Kaiser  "in  shining  armour"  holds  back  the 
Tsar;  "potential  energy"  never  wants  war,  but  threat- 
ens it — Russia's  fatal  conflict  mth  Japan  inspired  from 
the  Wilhelmstrasse — The  Balkan  League  springs  up 
armed  in  1912;  collapse  of  New  Turkey;  1913,  the  "Year 
of  Redemption" — Foul  Treachery  of  Bulgarian  King; 
second  Balkan  War,  instigated  bj^  Austria;  humiliation 
of  Bulgaria;  Treaty  of  Bucharest — Franz  Ferdinand  re- 
joices that  the  Pan-Slav  dream  is  at  an  end — Serbia  the 
Slav  Piedmont;  menace  to  "ramshackle"  Fjmpire — 
Vienna  meditates  hostilities  in  1913 — A  Bulgarian  vi- 
sion— Date  of  the  coming  Great  War  fixed,  not  later 
than  August  1914 — The  Murders  at  Sarajevo,  June  28 
of  that  year. 

CHAPTER  Xn 

Belgium  Saves  Europe 261-281 

"Delenda  est  Austria,"  why  the  Dual  Empire  must  go — 
Its  futility  and  falsehood  to  its  mission — The  ultima- 
tum to  Serbia  was  a  deliberate  crime  against  the  world's 
peace — The  Aichduke's  murder  a  pretext,  made  or 
pounced  upon,  and  the  negotiations  from  July  23  to  Au- 
gust 1,  1914,  craftily  set  on  a  wrong  tack — Sir  Edward 
Grey's  innocent  diplomacy,  and  refusal  of  our  pacificist 
Government  to  take  a  \'iew  of  realities — War  invited  by 
the  helpless  condition  of  Western  Powers — "Infamous 
proposals"  made  to  us  from  Berlin — Rejected,  but  in 
terms  too  mild — Kaiser's  ultimatums  to  Paris  and 
Petersburg — He  declares  War  on  Russia,  August  1 — 
"Black  Saturdaj'"  in  London.  Cabinet  compelled  to 
decide  by  Tory  pressure  on  August  2 — Belgium  saves 
the  conscience  of  Europe  by  refusing  to  violate  its  own 
neutrahty — The  law,  the  facts,  and  tlie  situation — King 
Albert  appeals  to  France  and  England — Scenes  in  the 
British  Parliament  linking  it  with  Long  Parliament  at 
its  height — The  "scrap  of  paper,"  and  "necessity  has  no 
law" — Britain  at  war  with  Germany  from  midnight, 
August  4 — The  perfect  tragedy. 

CHAPTER  Xin 

The  Triumph  of  "Kultur"      ....     282-301 

Germany,  "Injustice  in  arms" — Invasion  of  Belgium — 
Schrecklichkeit — Ordered  by  German  War-Book;  Moltke 
and  Bismarck  commend  it — Burning,  pillage,  slaughter, 
rape,  havoc,  inflicted  on  non-combatants— The  "Lesson 
of  Louvain";  flight  of  myriads  to  Holland,  France, 
Britain — Seven  millions  starving  but  for  relief  from  Al- 


XX  '  ,    .CONTENDS 


PA6B 

lies  and  U.  S.  A. — Logic  of  destruction  followed  by  mod- 
ern Huns  from  1914  to  1917  in  every  shape — But  the 
Belgian  resistance  defeated  German  plan — Seven  weeks 
— July  23  to  September  10  bring  decisive  results — The 
March  of  the  Huns  to  within  twenty  miles  of  Paris— 
Government  retires,  September  3,  to  Bordeaux — Battles 
of  the  Marne,  following  on  retreat  from  Mons,  end  in  Al- 
lied victory — Germans  fall  back  on  the  Aisne;  war  of 
parallel  positions  foreseen  by  Bloch  ensues — Time,  the 
"asset,"  passes  over  to  our  side.  Great  rally  of  British 
Commonwealths  and  India  to  Britain — Ireland's  hope 
and  glory — Why  so  long  thwarted? — Alliances:  Turkey 
and  Bulgaria  join  Central  Empires — The  Belgian  King 
and  Cardinal;  heroic  stand  of  both;  Cardinal  Mercier 
condemns  the  Kaiser — Lusitania  Day. 

CHAPTER  XIV 

America  Passes  Judgment 302-325 

My  book  returns  to  its  beginning — America  in  reserve,  as 
belonging  to  the  years  1648-1649 — Maryland,  the  first 
to  set  up  religious  freedom — Catholic  teachers  limit 
State-powers — First  Amendment  to  American  Consti- 
tution, 1791,  rejects  the  Csesar-Pontiff  established  by 
Treaty  of  Westphalia — Bearing  of  all  this  on  our  War  of 
Liberation — A  pilgrimage  to  Athens  and  Marathon — 
Greek  and  American  Liberty  meet  on  the  field  where 
Persian  autocracy  was  defeated — My  forecast  in  Janu- 
ary 1915  of  the  judgment  of  Washington — The  world's 
agony — Russia  throws  down  the  Tsardom — While  the 
Allies  observe  laws  of  Neutrality,  the  Germans  utterly 
abolish  them — Expostulations  from  U.  S.  A.  unavailing 
— President  Wilson  requests  the  belligerents  to  state 
their  terms;  the  Germans  refuse,  the  Allies  comply — 
On  April  2,  1917,  the  President  holds  before  Congress 
the  "State-trial  of  an  Empire" — Indictment,  verdict, 
sentence;  close  of  the  World's  Debate — Lincoln  and 
Wilson,  Good  Friday,  1865,  1917. 

CHAPTER  XV 

The  Vision  of  Peace 326-333 

America  joins  Britain's  League  of  Honour;  the  restoration 
of  Free  Institutions;  Macaulay's  witness — From  the 
Tribe  to  the  City — Athens,  Rome,  Jerusalem,  or  Light, 
Law,  Revelation — Union  of  these  will  bring  Peace — 
Rome  as  world-centre  and  Golden  Milestone — The  Holy 
Roman  People,  or  Church  and  Democracy  reconciled — 
A  dear  price  for  the  New  Age  paid  in  the  lives  of  dear 
friends — My  dead  soldiers  and  what  they  have  won  for 
us  by  dying — Prometheus  shall  at  last  be  unbound. 


CHAPTER  I 


The  Roots  of  xVriarchy 


TO-DAY  is  born  of  yesterday,  but  as  if 
at  once  proud  and  ashamed,  too  often 
it  disowns  its  pedigree.  Not  so  the  scalds, 
or  prophets,  or  by  whatever  name  they 
go,  who  "look  before  and  after" — to  them 
it  is  a  tale  of  insight  and  foresight  and  the 
present  was  already  contained  in  the  past, 
tanquam  in  causis;  whence  they  know  that 
the  future,  could  they  see  it,  is  here  and  now 
a  potent  reality,  or,  like  the  view  that  we 
catch  in  a  glass  of  things  behind  us,  it  has  a 
twofold  being,  real  and  ideal.  To  question 
this  would  be  to  make  of  history  a  chaos,  "a 
mighty  maze"  and  yet  "without  a  plan."  The 
fact  is  far  otherwise.  By  fate  and  free  will 
we  came  into  the  battle,  long  since  dimly 
foreseen,  which  will  fix  the  opening  years  of 
the  twentieth  century  as  beginning  a  new 
time,  while  ending  the  old  one  in  the  gloom 
of  thunder  and  eclipse.  Reader,  I  am  going 
to  ask  you  candidly,  with  me  not  less  candid, 

1 


2  THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 

I  promise  you  beforehand,  to  consider  the 
wide  historical  landscape  on  which  Arma- 
geddon unrolls  its  tragic  ''Haupt-und-Staats- 
action" — or  play  of  Heaven  and  Earth.  And 
we  will  have  written  above  the  stage  these 
lines  from  our  all-seeing  poet — 

"Either  there  is  a  civil  strife  in  Heaven; 
Or  else  the  world,  too  saucy  with  the  gods. 
Incenses  them  to  send  destruction." 

I  will  not  keep  you  with  an  interminable 
prologue.  Remarkably  enough,  two  happen- 
ings there  are,  of  which  all  men  have  heard  or 
are  now  feeling  the  consequences,  brought  by 
the  Supreme  Power  we  call  Providence  into 
the  compass  of  a  Hundred  Days,  at  the  end 
of  1648  and  the  beginning  of  1649.  These 
gi'eat  events,  so  near  in  time  to  each  other, 
stand  yet  memorable  as  well-heads  of  the 
Modern  Europe  into  which  we  were  born. 
One  was  the  signing  of  the  Treaty  of  West- 
phalia on  October  24,  1648.  The  other  was  the 
execution  of  Charles  Stuart,  king  of  England, 
on  January  30,  1649.  This  high  mountain 
range  forms  the  watershed  of  Modern  History. 
The  Treaty  dissolved  Medieval  Europe  into  its 
parts;  the  execution  did  symbolically  and  in 
subsequent  deed,  as  old  Boswell  of  Auchin- 


THE  ROOTS  OF  ANARCHY 


leek  growled,  to  Johnson's  indignation,  "gar 
kings  ken  they  had  a  lith  in  their  neck."  The 
Holy  Roman  Empire  and  Absolute  Monarchy 
were  doomed  from  those  two  days,  October  24, 
1648,  and  January  30,  1649. 

To  bear  these  dates  in  mind  together  should 
not  be  impossible.  In  our  elementary  schools, 
where  a  vague  Royalism  or  Jacobitism  hangs 
about  still,  the  day  and  year  of  Charles's 
"taking  off"  are  taught  as  indispensable  to 
knowledge;  but  the  Treaty  of  Westphalia 
fares  differently.  It  belongs  to  continental 
nations — those  queer  foreigners  of  whom  we 
need  learn  nothing  except  when  they  invaded 
us,  or  w^e  them.  Our  English  History  is  a 
water-tight  compartment.  Beyond  it  the 
people  never  look;  and  with  how  little  out- 
side it  have  our  statesmen  as  a  rule  considered 
themselves  bound  to  be  acquainted?  Hence 
the  War,  its  surprises,  its  length,  and  its 
hazards — unnecessary  if  England  had  been 
ready  with  a  store  of  facts  bearing  on  our 
relations  to  Europe  at  large.  I  count  myself 
a  perfectly  loyal  subject.  But  I  see  no  ground 
why  that  should  hinder  me  from  being  a 
"good  European."  Had  our  governing  men 
been  of  that  disposition,  I  say  not  the  war 
could  never  have  come  to  pass.     In  my  view. 


4  THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 

hoc  erat  in  fatis^  it  was  bound  to  come  to  pass. 
But  the  British  Empire  would  have  beheld  it 
moving  on  from  afar  and  made  preparation 
accordingly. 

Now,  to  take  the  events  of  1648  and  1649 
in  order  as  things  fell  out,  first,  what  did  this 
foreign  Treaty  of  Westphalia  signify?  The 
English  nation,  busy  in  plucking  down  Charles 
and  setting  up  Cromwell,  was  not  represented 
there.  By  and  by  she  would  meet  its  con- 
sequences on  many  a  field  of  battle.  Poland, 
Muscovy,  and  Turkey  were  likewise  absent. 
By  weight  of  metal  the  chief  contracting 
parties  were  Austria,  which  had  finally  suffered 
defeat,  and  France  and  Sweden,  which  had 
beaten  her,  in  the  Thirty  Years  War.  Peace 
now  came  to  seal  the  victory  of  West  and 
North.  Peace,  after  Central  Europe  had 
been  wasted  by  sword,  fire,  and  famine,  all 
ministers  of  wrath  in  this  greatest  and  last  of 
the  wars  named  of  Religion!  Henceforth  in 
German  lands  not  ruled  as  hereditary  by  the 
House  of  Habsburg,  three  Confessions  might 
live  side  by  side:  the  Lutheran,  the  Calvinist, 
and  the  Catholic — on  certain  terms.  If  a 
prince  changed  his  religion  he  forfeited  his 
dominions.  But  instead  of  one  central  author- 
ity, as  hitherto,  the  "elected  Roman  Kaiser," 


THE  ROOTS  OF  ANARCHY       5 

who  was  also  German  king,  now  every  petty 
lord  became  a  sovereign,  and  the  Fatherland, 
thus  parcelled  out,  fell  beneath  the  sway  of 
some  three  hundred  despots,  all  claiming  to 
reign,  temporal  alike  and  spiritual,  "von  Gottes 
Gnaden,"  by  the  grace  of  God.  The  Empire 
still  continued  in  name;  but  anarchy  is  the 
true  account  of  it  from  henceforth  until,  smit- 
ten to  death  by  jSTapoleon,  it  expired  with  ig- 
nominy in  1806.  The  balance-wheel  of  the 
old  European  system  had  been  shattered  by 
the  Reformation ;  and  at  Miinster  the  attempt 
was  made  to  set  up  a  fresh  equilibrium,  but 
the  thing  was  not  to  be  done. 

From  the  year  1648  Germany  sank  lower 
and  lower.  For  nearly  a  hundred  years  it 
became  in  the  ruling  classes  an  appanage  of 
France.  Its  religion,  literature,  and  social 
aims  lost  all  native  vigour.  Of  course,  no 
German  prince  or  poet  was  capable  of  writing 
as  Frenchmen  wrote,  or  of  rehearsing  in  any 
fit  manner  at  Herrenhausen  the  graces  of 
Marly  and  Versailles.  But  there  was  com- 
pensation in  keeping.  While  Austria,  faithful 
to  its  name,  went  on  pressing  eastward, 
along  the  Danube  and  against  the  Turk,  a 
new  Power,  of  origin  somewhat  humble,  as 
derived  about  1170  from  a  certain  Conrad  of 


6  THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 

Hohenzollern  in  Suabia,  not  far  from  the 
Lake  of  Constance,  began  without  distinctly 
meaning  it  to  aspire,  as  ambition  will,  to  the 
high  place  left  empty  by  the  incapable  House 
of  Habsburg,  summed  up  long  afterwards  by 
Bismarck  in  a  scornful  phrase,  "those  idiotic 
Archdukes."  This  new  Power  was  Lutheran 
Prussia. 

We  can  try  to  remember  so  much,  at  all 
events.  Luther  has  four  centuries  of  German 
history  (1517-1917)  to  his  account.  Luther, 
a  strong  man,  on  any  reckoning;  "a  genial 
ruffian,"  according  to  Huxley;  a  mystic  in  love 
with  that  very  beautiful  book  of  the  spirit, 
the  "Deutsche  Theoiogie";  a  monk  armed 
at  all  points  in  the  scholastic  but  curiously 
modem  views  of  the  Englishman,  William 
of  Ockham;  a  master  in  his  native  tongue, 
idiomatic,  racy,  humorous;  the  creator,  not 
without  help  from  older  Catholic  versions,  of 
the  German  Bible;  a  Billingsgate  polemic, 
whose  words  and  illustrations  are  humiliating 
to  man's  self-respect;  a  fanatic,  an  hypochon- 
driac, a  born  adversary  of  Rome — this  was 
the  modern  Hermann,  who  broke  the  power 
of  St.  Peter  in  Deutschland  as  that  ancient 
Arminius  had  cut  to  pieces  the  legions  of 
Augustus.    A  strong  man,  I  repeat;  whether 


THE  ROOTS  OF  ANARCHY       7 

a  great  man  will  be  decided  by  our  standard 
of  greatness.  A  demonic  force,  it  appears  to 
me;  and  I  rank  him  with  Milton's  Satan, 
with  Goethe's  JSIephistopheles,  as  a  "wondrous 
son  of  Chaos,"  not  of  Cosmos,  in  league  with 
darkness  rather  than  the  light.  He  stalks 
out  of  the  Norse  mythology  like  a  Frost- 
Giant  ;  or  he  is  Fenri's  w^olf  opening  capacious 
jaws  to  swallow  down  the  sun.  Pardon  me, 
Reader;  but  I  am  by  choice  and  temperament 
a  lover  of  the  South  and  its  fine  order,  clear 
heaven,  and  wine-coloured  seas;  these  are  my 
preference — 

"  ttovtIcov  Tt  Kvnaroiv 
avripLdnov  yeXaafxa,  iraixii-qTop  re  7^, 
Kal  Tov  irauoTTTTjv  kukXov  77X101;  KoKo). 

Luther  broke  North  from  South;  he  threw 
Germans  back  upon  their  fierce  old  barbaric 
traditions  of  the  Teutoburgian  Forest,  and 
thus  he  will  be  seen  in  historical  perspective 
as  the  real  founder  of  Prussia.  He  looked 
round  for  a  sword.  Most  extraordinary  it  is, 
but  a  fact,  that  such  a  sword  was  already 
forging  to  his  hand,  if  he  did  but  know  it,  by 
another  monk,  but  this  time  a  soldier,  bound 
under  vows  of  celibacy  and  of  service  to  Holy 
Church,  the  High  jNIaster  of  the  Teutonic 
knights,  Albert  of  Brandenburg,  his  junior 


8  THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 

by  seven  years  (Luther,  1483;  Albert,  1490). 
This  HohenzoUern  converted  ''Prussia,"  which 
he  held  simply  in  trust  for  the  Order,  into  his 
own  hereditary  Dukedom,  and  made  the  con- 
senting, i.  e.  newly  Protestant  knights,  his 
vassals  by  the  still  quasi-monastic  name  of 
"Junkers" — a  name  we  have  often  heard 
since  August,  1914.  The  business  involved 
a  feudal  submission  of  this  stolen  "Ducal" 
Prussia  to  Sigismund  of  Poland,  which  was 
done  at  Cracow,  October  8,  1525. 

The  sword  of  a  future  Germany  was  now 
laid  on  the  anvil,  to  be  smitten  by  many  strokes 
and  annealed  in  blazing  fires,  until  it  would  cut 
as  sharp  as  any  magic  Excalibur.  The  seeming 
Peace,  but  veritable  anarchy,  of  Westphaha 
put  it  edged  and  tempered  into  the  hands  of  the 
Great  Elector.  When  he  laid  it  down,  Bran- 
denburg, under  the  style  and  title  of  Prussia, 
was  ready  to  proclaim  itself  a  kingdom.  That 
is  the  next  memorable  date,  January  18,  1701. 
I  will  join  it  straightway  with  another,  which 
many  surviving  like  myself  can  call  to  mind — 
January  18,  1871,  when  William  I,  King  of 
Prussia,  was  acclaimed  German  Emperor  in 
the  Palace  of  Versailles  by  the  assembled 
kings  and  princes  of  the  two  groups,  north 
and   south   of   the   Main.      In   the   Hall   of 


THE  ROOTS  OF  ANARCHY       9 

Glories  dedicated  to  Louis  XIV,  Germany 
took  her  revenge  upon  France  for  the  dis- 
memberment effected  in  Westphaha  upon 
the  old  Empire. 

Such,  then,  is  the  significance  to  us  of  that 
Treaty;  it  means  the  rise  of  Prussia.  Note 
well  how  the  new  Empire  began,  for  thereby 
hangs  the  whole  story.  From  an  Order  of 
Catholic  military  monks,  resembling  the 
Knights  of  St.  John,  their  landed  possessions 
were  forcibly  seized  by  the  Grand  Master, 
who  was  sworn  to  protect  them  against  all 
comers.  He  annexed  this  great  heritage  to 
his  ow^n  family  for  ever.  And  thus  he  made 
a  secular  State  from  property  and  dominions 
which  had  long  been  consecrated  to  the 
sanctuary.  But  observe  that,  in  ceasing  to 
be  a  monk,  Albert  of  Brandenburg  became  a 
pope.  I  am  speaking  literally.  According 
to  the  terms  of  the  famous  compact  among 
Teuton  princes,  finally  and  formally  sealed 
at  the  Westphalian  Treaty,  Cujus  regio,  ejus 
religio,  the  land-ruler  fixes  the  land's  religion. 

What  can  that  matter  to  us  now?  you  may 
ask.  In  this  way  it  matters.  We  have  been 
astonished,  nay,  perplexed,  by  the  sheep-like 
docility  of  an  entire  people  to  any  and  every 
dictate  of  its  Government.     That  those  mil- 


10        THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 

lions  should  have  no  conscience  of  their  own; 
that  when  bidden  not  only  to  perpetrate  but 
to  justify  atrocities  in  their  nature  most  re- 
volting, Germans  of  all  ranks  should  without 
a  murmur  have  thus  prostituted  their  very 
souls,  is  a  thing  to  be  accounted  for;  and 
here  is  the  explanation.  The  State,  as  Luther 
conceived  of  it,  was  the  one  Divine  authority 
left  as  a  public  power  in  the  world.  To  resist 
it  under  whatsoever  provocation  was  a  sin 
unto  death.  His  language  on  the  Peasants' 
Rising  in  1525  is  well  known,  and  so  violent 
that  I  would  rather  not  quote  it.  For  I  am 
not  composing  an  invective  against  Luther. 
All  I  wish  at  this  point  is  to  show  that,  on 
his  principles,  the  only  visible  Church  is  the 
State,  and  consequently  the  only  visible  Pope 
is  its  head.  We  are  familiar  with  a  doctrine 
and  practice  like  unto  this  from  the  proceedings 
of  Henry  VIII,  who,  claiming  the  power  of 
the  keys,  exercised  his  prerogatives  over  and 
over  again  in  drawing  up  variations  of  belief, 
and  laid  upon  his  subjects  the  duty  under 
formidable  penalties  of  accepting  them. 

But  in  Germany  the  State  has  been  a  never- 
dying  Henry  VIII.  It  has  never  ceased  to 
command  that  public  opinion  should  follow 
its  decrees  in  all  things.    The  ugly  name  for 


THE  ROOTS  OF  ANARCHY     11 

a  still  uglier  thing  is  Caesaro-Papism.  Every 
little  tyrant,  reigning  over  a  few  square  miles 
and  a  handful  of  Germans  bound  to  "his 
Transparency,"  was  a  Pontifex  Maximus, 
who  could  turn  these  pliant  subjects  from 
Lutheran  to  Calvinist  and  back  again,  when  it 
suited  his  policy  or  his  pleasure.  Thus  Luther 
and  Lutheranism  granted  to  the  Prince  all 
that  was  refused  to  the  Pope. 

This  conception  of  the  King-Pontiff  is 
fundamental  in  the  Prussian  State.  It  is 
also  heathen,  and  very  old.  It  is  profoundly 
anti-Christian.  Catholics  and  Puritans  have 
both  stood  out  against  it  in  the  name  of  the 
New  Testament.  As  for  modern  English- 
men, to  such  a  distance  are  they  removed 
from  reverence  to  "His  Most  Sacred  Majesty," 
illustrated,  as  Carlyle  would  say,  by  a  Nell 
Gwynne  and  Charles  II,  that  a  present  claim 
on  the  part  of  Kaiser  Wilhelm  to  be  Heaven's 
Vice-gerent  stirs  them  to  scornful  laughter. 
Among  the  grounds  on  which  they  feel  dis- 
posed to  think  him  mad — at  all  events,  like 
Hamlet,  "north-north-west" — by  no  means 
the  least  persuasive  appears  to  them  an  ex- 
travagance so  far  out  of  fashion,  as  well  as 
in  itself  ridiculous.  When  in  proclamations 
not  merely  to  his  soldiers  but  to  the  Poles 


12         THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 

whom  he  trampled  down,  or  whom  he  is 
invading,  this  play-actor  declares  with  his- 
trionic gesture  that  the  Lord  has  sent  him, 
as  if  he  were  the  Messiah,  good  sense  judges 
that  he  might  with  equal  decorum  announce 
himself  as  "Brother  of  the  Sun  and  Moon." 
Rightly  so;  but  here  begins  the  first  lesson 
of  the  dreadful  War  Service  we  are  cele- 
brating; and  we  have  not  learnt  it  yet. 

To  us,  for  reasons  I  will  give  in  due  course, 
the  Csesar-Pope  is  an  outworn  superstition.  He 
lies  buried  in  the  coffin  of  Charles  I.  But 
to  the  Teuton  race  he  is  yet  alive;  he  is  their 
Commander  of  the  Faithful,  the  Caliph  of 
Berlin,  and  armed  with  a  two-edged  sword. 
He  has  never  laid  aside  the  High  Mastership, 
not  now  of  an  Order  but  a  Nation,  which 
consecrates  him  to  his  sacred  office.  Wilhelm 
is  a  stage-player,  indeed,  deserving  to  be 
compared  with  Nero  ra'iher  than  with  Cali- 
gula; but  on  that  account  he  seizes  readily 
and  renders  dramatically  the  part  assigned  to 
him  as  Hohenzollern,  as  Deutscher  Kaiser; 
and  he  proclaims  the  story  of  his  birth  and 
heaven-descended  dignity,  in  perfect  good 
faith,  to  a  listening  but  scandalised  earth. 

Wars  led  by  a  Commander  of  the  Faithful 
are,  in  effect,  wars  of  religion.    If  Westphalia 


THE  ROOTS  OF  ANARCHY     13 


saw  the  end  of  the  last,  we  are  looking  on  at 
the  progress  of  another  which,  in  more  than 
one,  point,  resembles  and  repeats  it.  The 
sword  that  Luther  desired,  wrought  by  Albert 
and  his  successors  into  a  mighty  eater  of  men, 
has  grown  to  be  the  War-Machine  behind 
which  Wilhelm,  Emperor  and  Pope,  rides 
into  battle.  He  takes  with  him  a  nation  of 
slaves  and  believers.  He  calls  upon  "our  old 
German  God"  to  help  him  by  right  of  clan- 
ship. These  follies  have  the  fury  of  madness 
in  them.  But  we,  in  our  simplicity,  still  fancy 
them  put  on,  whereas  they  are  the  innermost, 
subconscious  conviction  of  a  people  broken 
to  servility  during  centuries,  incapable  of 
undoing  the  spell  which  holds  them  down. 

Now  consider  the  second  thing  fixed  by 
the  Westphalian  Treaty  of  1648.  This  was 
the  recognition  of  boundaries,  hereafter  pretty 
nearly  inviolable,  between  the  Roman  Church 
and  the  Churches  of  the  Reformation.  No 
writer  has  told  the  story  in  fewer  or  more 
effective  words  than  Macaulay,  whose  essay  on 
Ranke's  History  of  the  Popes  comes  nearer  to 
philosophic  thought  than  all  the  other  pages 
he  covered  with  phrases  and  pictures.  There 
are  those  who  affect  some  disdain  of  the 
eloquent  Whig,  descended  from  Norse  and 


14        THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 

Celt,  as  though  his  utterances  were  the  flourish 
of  kettledrums  in  an  orchestra.  But  Macaulay, 
the  man  of  letters,  had  seasons  when  he  pro- 
phesied; and  this  hour  devoted  to  Von  Ranke 
caught  him  up  to  Pisgah  heights,  whence  he 
surveyed  the  past  lying  at  his  feet  and  the 
future  very  far  off.  He  had  no  metaphysics; 
the  question  which  he  opened  concerning  Re- 
ligion, whether,  viz.  it  holds  or  exhibits  any  law 
of  progress,  Macaulay  was  incapable  of  answer- 
ing. His  temper,  cast  in  a  secular  mould,  never 
could  bear  visionaries.  Yet  in  this  one  essay 
there  is  a  touch  of  the  visionary.  Why  did 
Rome  lose  what  she  lost  at  the  Reformation? 
Why,  fifty  years  from  Luther's  uprising,  could 
Catholicism  "scai'cely  maintain  itself  on  the 
shores  of  the  Mediterranean"?  Why,  again, 
one  hundred  years  after  it,  could  "Protestant- 
ism scarcely  maintain  itself  on  the  shores  of 
the  Baltic"?  And  why  the  settlement  which 
was  finally  reached  in  1648?  "When,  at 
length,"  says  Macaulay,  "the  Peace  of  West- 
phalia was  eoncluded,  it  appeared  that  the 
Church  of  Rome  remained  in  full  possession 
of  a  vast  dominion  which  in  the  middle  of  the 
preceding  centuiy  she  seemed  on  the  point  of 
losing.  No  part  of  Europe  remained  Pro- 
testant, except  that  part  which  had  become 


THE  ROOTS  OF  ANARCHY     15 


thoroughly  Protestant  before  the  generation 
which  heard  Luther  preach  had  passed  away." 
I  am  not  proposing,  at  my  present  stage,  to 
submit  reasons  for  these  things  which  travel 
farther  than  those  alleged  by  INIacaulay.  Later 
on,  that  task  shall  be  attempted.  Our  concern 
just  now  is  with  Rome's  actual  circumference 
as  it  was  traced  at  the  Westphalian  congress. 
It  is  a  remarkable  one.  If  we  take  the  map 
of  Europe,  we  shall  see  that  it  lay  very  largely 
within  the  lines  traced  by  the  Emperor 
Valentinian  in  the  year  a.d.  364,  as  dividing 
the  West  from  the  East.  On  one  side  we 
reckon  Thrace,  Asia,  and  Egypt;  on  the 
other,  which  is  ours,  Illyricum,  Italy,  the 
Gauls,  Britain,  Spain,  and  Africa.  The  prov- 
ince of  Illyricum  included  classic  Greece  or 
Hellas,  on  portions  of  which  the  Venetian 
Republic  held  a  faltering  grasp  until  1715. 
Africa  had  long  fallen  a  prej^  to  Islam  and 
nondescript  Barbarians.  The  Britons,  though 
more  under  influences  emanating  from  Geneva 
than  from  Wittenberg,  were  fiercely  anti- 
papal;  yet  the  Church  of  England  showed  a 
significant  spirit  of  compromise,  and  gloried 
in  its  Via  Media.  But  Italy,  the  Gauls,  and 
Spain  kept  faithful  to  Rome.  The  Low 
Countries  were  almost  equally  partitioned,  as 


16         THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 

to  numbers,  between  Catholics  and  the  Re- 
formed. Switzerland  was  in  much  the  same 
condition.  And  the  Rhine,  the  Main,  the 
Danube  had  become,  though  not  altogether  or 
exactly,  bounds  which  the  Roman  missionaries 
found  it  hard  to  cross.  Bohemia  was  Catholic; 
Hungary  had  its  Dissidents.  Far  away  from 
the  purview  of  Rome,  to  whose  empire  it  was 
never  subdued  but  whose  faith  it  embraced  with 
enthusiasm,  Ireland,  soon  to  be  given  over  to 
"the  curse  of  Cromwell,"  was  earning  by  its 
afflictions  the  title  of  the  Martyr-Nation.  As 
remote  in  the  Middle  East  as  Ireland  in  the 
North- West,  another  people  resembling  the 
Irish  by  their  military  spirit,  their  eloquence, 
brilliancy,  and  enormous  difficulties  in  setting 
up  a  State  on  firm  foundations — I  mean  the 
Poles — were  Catholics  too,  and  with  them  we 
must  count  the  Lithuanians. 

"At  first,"  says  Macaulay  once  more,  "the 
chances  seemed  to  be  decidedly  in  favour  of 
Protestantism;  but  the  victory  remained  with 
the  Church  of  Rome.  On  every  point  she  was 
successful,"  that  is,  in  the  debatable  land  be- 
tween the  south  and  north  of  Europe.  He 
concludes:  "If  we  overleap  another  half  cen- 
tury (from  1557)  we  find  her  victorious  and 
dominant  in  France,  Belgium,  Bavaria,  Bohe- 


THE  ROOTS  OF  ANARCHY     17 


mia,  Austria,  Poland,  and  Hungary.  Nor  has 
Protestantism,  in  the  course  of  two  hundred 
years,  been  able  to  reconquer  any  portion  of 
what  was  then  lost."  The  essayist  wrote  in 
the  year  1840.  His  last  observation  holds 
good  to-day. 

To  strike  a  balance  of  gains  and  losses  be- 
tween contending  Christians  is  a  melancholy 
task.  The  thing  w^hich  at  Miinster  and  Osna- 
briick  stereotyped  itself  in  the  world's  history 
was  a  world's  catastrophe — the  break-up  of 
Christendom.  It  told,  to  an  infinite  extent,  of 
evil  above  and  below  the  dividing  line,  though 
in  ways  not  similar.  The  gain  resulting  inside 
these  communions  by  emulation  or  enforced 
strictness,  put  it  as  high  as  you  please,  requires 
to  be  weighed  against  estrangement  and  the 
scandal  of  controversies,  unbeliefs,  scepticisms, 
and  widespread  "indifference  in  religion" 
growing  ever  among  modern  nations.  To 
Rome  the  consequences  have  been  incalcu- 
lable. "The  multitude  of  nations  which  are 
within  the  fold  of  the  Church,"  so  Newman 
wrote  in  his  Apologia,  "will  be  found  to  have 
acted  for  its  protection."  And  he  goes  on  to 
remark,  "It  seems  to  me  that  Catholicity  is 
not  only  one  of  the  notes  of  the  Church,  but 
according  to  the   divine  purpose   one   of  its 


18        THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 

securities.  I  think  it  would  be  a  very  serious 
evil  (which  divine  mercy  avert!)  that  the 
Church  should  be  contracted  in  Europe  within 
the  range  of  particular  nationalities.  .  .  .  And 
assuredly  I  think  that  the  loss  of  the  English, 
not  to  say  the  German  element  in  its  compo- 
sition, has  been  a  most  serious  misfortune." 
That  misfortune  became  at  Westphalia  the 
necessary  preamble  to  all  treaties,  laws,  con- 
stitutions, confederacies  in  every  part  of  the 
globe  where  Europeans  were  called  upon  to 
act.  We  live  under  the  deep  shadow  of  it 
now. 

For  consider  the  loss  to  humanity,  to 
fraternity.  When  I  celebrate  the  chief  Chris- 
tian rite,  which  is  that  of  friendship,  "common- 
ly called  the  Mass,"  according  as  it  is  noted  in 
the  first  Prayer  Book  of  King  Edward  VI,  I 
can  solemnize  it  in  Xotre  Dame  at  Paris,  in 
St.  Ambrose's  at  Milan,  over  the  body  of  St. 
Mark  at  Venice,  in  the  Annunziata  which  is 
at  Florence,  or  at  the  very  Confession  of  St. 
Peter  in  Rome,  where  indeed  I  celebrated  my 
first  Mass  forty-four  years  ago.  And  I  recall 
with  very  tender  exultation  how  often  I  said 
Mass  and  gave  Communion  to  a  kneeling 
crowd  in  the  most  heavenly  of  all  God's 
temples,  the  beloved  St.  Mark's  at  Venice. 


THE  ROOTS  OF  ANARCHY     19 


But,  although  meaning  nought  but  good  to 
my  fellow-men,  I  cannot  say  it  in  St.  Paul's, 
London,  or  in  Westminster  Abbey,  at  St. 
Edward's  shrine,  or  in  St.  Giles's,  Edinburgh, 
or  in  Christ  Church,  Dublin.  That  is  a  grief 
to  me,  a  rending  of  the  heart.  Not  because 
of  the  glory  still  haunting  those  hallowed  spots 
(yet  who  would  forbid  tears  even  on  that 
account?)  but  by  reason  of  its  making  me 
strange  to  men — 

"Men  my  brothers,  men  the  workers,  ever  reaping  some- 
thing new; 

That  which  they  have  done  the  earnest  of  the  things 
which  they  shall  do." 

And  I  mourn  that  the  breaking  up  of  home 
should  have  made  two  camps — I  had  almost 
written  two  prisons.  I  know  them  both  well. 
Brought  up,  though  a  Catholic,  among  Pro- 
testants of  the  most  austere  Puritan  type,  I 
speak  of  that  which  I  have  seen,  not  by  hear- 
say. Our  Shakespeare  must  have  felt  some- 
thing of  this  pity  at  heart  when  he  drew  an 
autumn  similitude  from  the  forsaken  cloisters — 

"Bare,  ruined  choirs,  where  late  the  sweet  birds  sang." 

And  our  manly,  pious  old  Samuel  Johnson; 
there  was  more  than  sentiment  or  romantic 
moonlight  poetry  in  his   indignation   at   the 


20        THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 


havoc  wrought  upon  those  beautiful  and  quiet 
places  where  the  converted  Barbarian  had  dis- 
covered how  he  might  hve  in  peace.  The  con- 
tinuity of  European  development  had  been 
unbroken  before  the  days  of  Luther;  yes,  even 
though  the  Western  Empire  fell;  for  the 
Church  carried  it  on,  and  created  the  institu- 
tions as  well  as  inspired  the  art  and  the  best 
legislation  of  the  Middle  Ages.  But  now  the 
Law  of  Compensation,  whereby  each  part  of 
our  civihsed  world  contributes  to  the  progress 
of  the  whole,  found  itself  thwarted  and  made 
of  none  effect;  since  forces  that  should  have 
worked  together  in  harmony  were  henceforth 
working  to  their  reciprocal  destruction.  The 
South  decayed  because  the  North  revolted. 

Could  any  wise  man's  son  or  sincere  Chris- 
tian deem  this  a  consummation  devoutly  to  be 
wished?  Was  it  unavoidable?  Then  let  us 
acknowledge  and  lament  it  in  sackcloth  and 
ashes.  The  thing  which  had  come  to  pass  im- 
mediately was  the  setting  up  of  Nations  as 
Churches,  with  denial  of  the  International 
Church.  This  broke  the  strength  of  Christen- 
dom precisely  when,  by  the  discovery  and 
conquest  of  America,  its  power  might  have 
been  doubled.  It  left  Rome  in  a  state  of 
exhaustion,  Germany  wasted  to  a  wilderness, 


THE  ROOTS  OF  ANARCHY     21 


Spain  in  decline,  Britain  curiously  isolated  then 
and  ever  after  from  the  Continent.  One  clear 
consequence  we  read,  which  came  strangely 
enough  in  the  wake  of  a  system  said  to  be  es- 
tablished on  Private  Judgment,  or  as  we  now 
term  it  Free  Thought.  Monarchies  limited 
during  the  Middle  Ages  by  open  compacts  with 
their  people,  by  the  feudal  network  of  sworn 
engagements  between  the  king  and  his  vassals, 
but  above  all  by  the  dedication  of  princi- 
palities and  powers  to  the  Lord  Christ, 
whose  Vicar  was  their  acting  suzerain,  threw 
off  these  restraints  and  declared  themselves 
absolute. 

For  centuries  the  Holy  See  had  resisted  the 
German  Emperors,  Franconian,  Hohenstauf- 
fen,  who  were  bent  on  making  their  will  the 
law  of  Church  and  State.  The  clergy  of  the 
West  claimed  immunities,  taxed  themselves 
in  their  own  synods,  and  in  no  slight  degree 
fulfilled  the  duties  we  now  assign  to  a  consti- 
tutional Opposition.  But  just  before  Luther 
was  born  a  constellation  of  unlucky  stars 
frowning  on  this  medieval  balance  of  power 
brought  in,  along  with  the  Renaissance,  what 
has  been  rightly  called  "the  Age  of  the  Des- 
pots." Nothing  could  be  so  false  to  history 
as  the  language  popular  in  journalism  which 


22         THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 

condemns  any  tyrant's  act  of  violence  or  op- 
pression as  "medieval."  The  full-blown  tyrant, 
whether  Louis  XI  of  France,  our  own  Henry 
Tudor,  the  Fleming  Charles  V,  his  son  Philip 
II,  or  the  French  Bourbon  who  caps  them  all, 
Louis  XIV,  was  produced  by  the  Renaissance, 
whose  beginnings  we  trace  far  back,  even  to 
the  republication  of  the  Imperial  Roman  Law 
in  the  early  twelfth  century. 

Well,  I  have  to  insist  that  the  "solely  sove- 
reign sway  and  master dom"  fatal  to  liberty, 
exercised  by  these  men,  are  abhorrent  to  the 
genius,  the  tradition,  and  the  true  interests  of 
the  Catholic  Church.  All  who  glance  into  her 
chronicles  know  that  there  was  such  a  man  as 
Hildebrand,  Pope  Gregory  VII.  They  have, 
at  least  in  its  main  lines,  followed  the  quarrel, 
hardly  ever  pausing,  between  the  Sacerdotium 
and  the  Imperium,  or  spiritual  independence 
and  secular  force.  Whrtever  judgment  may 
be  passed  on  the  acts  of  popes,  councils,  or 
saints  in  that  combat,  the  fact  remains  that 
their  strivings  went  to  the  limitation  of  royal 
prerogatives.  It  can  never  be  otherwise  in 
principle.  For  kingdoms  are  of  this  world, 
and  the  Catholic  Church  holds  of  the  world 
to  come.  A  king  may  be  "Defender  of  the 
Faith"    by    papal    diploma;    to    make    him 


THE  ROOTS  OF  ANARCHY     23 


"Definer  of  the  Faith"  is  to  fall  into  heresy. 
No  pope  would  subscribe  to  the  Lutheran 
Westphalian  doctrine,  ''Ciijus  regio,  ejus 
religio."  The  tyrant  must  halt  on  the  thresh- 
old of  the  Holy  Place,  otherwise  the  doom  of 
Uzziah  will  strike  him,  and  as  a  leper  and 
usurper  he  will  be  driven  forth.  On  such 
an  issue  battle  is  joined  between  Rome  and 
Prussia. 

If  we  widen  the  compass  of  the  word 
"Faith,"  so  as  to  take  in  whatsoever  belongs 
chiefly  or  altogether  to  man's  inward  faculties ; 
for  example,  his  conscience,  mental  systems, 
fine  arts  and  the  like,  which  have  among  them 
a  most  intimate  relation;  we  shall  be  obliged 
to  grant  that,  in  refusing  to  subject  the  Church 
to  an  absolute  secular  lord,  the  clergy  were 
protecting  civilisation.  They  were  finding  a 
way  of  escape  from  tyranny,  yet  holding  up 
ideals  opposed  to  anarchy.  The  Treaty  of 
Westphalia  by  its  inclusion  of  the  spiritual 
domain  within  the  king's  pale  was  promoting 
the  one  and  the  other.  Both  tyranny  and 
anarchy  indeed  were  already  grappling,  as  the 
story  of  England  shows.  To  that  story,  with 
its  controlling  event,  the  judicial  execution  of 
Charles  I,  let  us  now  turn.  If  on  October  24, 
1648,  we  might  have  calculated  the  horoscope 


24        THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 

of  a  future  German  Empire,  Prussian,  abso- 
lute, exalting  itself  above  all  that  is  called 
God  or  worshipped;  on  January  30,  1649,  we 
might  have  beheld  the  vindication  on  a  public 
scaffold  of  the  medieval  doctrine  that  a  ruler 
must  answer  before  man,  as  well  as  at  the 
divine  judgment-seat,  for  his  unconstitutional 
acts.  This  was  the  second  and,  as  I  believe, 
the  more  momentous  of  those  two  historical 
scenes  which  distinguish  the  great  Hundred 
Days  of  the  seventeenth  century. 


CHAPTER  II 


How  England  solved  her  Kaiser-problem 

WITH  music  and  passion  the  late  A.  C. 
Swinburne  warned  all  sovereign  per- 
sons in  his  Songs  Before  Sunrise^  to  the  effect 
that — 

"Night  hath  its  one  red  star,  Tyrannicide." 

A  fine  verse,  reminiscent  of  another  in  Schil- 
ler's Wallenstein,  and  it  stays  in  the  memory. 
Like  a  death-knell  it  keeps  ringing  through  cer- 
tain historical  episodes,  and  through  the  cen- 
turies, down  to  the  murder  of  a  Royal  and  Im- 
perial Archduke,  the  Austrian  Franz  Ferdi- 
nand, with  his  wife,  on  that  June  28,  1914, 
when,  as  on  a  mighty  stage,  beheld  of  the  whole 
world,  there  was  raised  the  curtain  of  war.  I 
pause  to  reflect,  not  I  hope  fancifully,  on  the 
constant  succession  of  symbolic  acts,  as  though 
we  were  witnessing  an  Apocalypse,  which 
has  accompanied  or  foreshadowed  the  present 
course  of  events.  From  Charles  I  of  England 
to  Charles  I  of  Austria  may  well  figure  in 
histories  by  and  by  as  a  great  cycle  complete. 

25 


26        THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 

If  a  title  be  wanted,  let  us  call  it  "The  King's 
Evil."  For  it  is  a  tragedy  of  a  di\dne  pre- 
tension claimed,  found  out,  and  finally  re- 
jected. The  Greek  name,  when  we  use  cold 
scientific  terms,  is  "Autocracy."  But  warm- 
hearted indignant  men  and  women  denounce 
it  as  "Tyranny." 

Whether  it  be  lawful  to  kill  a  tyrant;  and, 
if  lawful,  how  it  may  be  sinlessly  done,  by 
shooting,  stabbing,  poisoning,  secretly  or 
openly — these  are  questions  for  debating  so- 
cieties. In  their  time  they  occupied  and  divided 
theologians.  Perhaps  I  may  say  that  there 
are  two  questions:  "Can  a  king  commit  trea- 
son against  his  people?"  and  "If  he  can,  what 
is  to  be  done  with  him?"  The  human  race, 
on  the  whole,  is  for  good  and  sound  reasons 
instinctively  loyal  to  such  a  degree  that  it 
will  suffer  almost  any  extremity  of  oppression 
before  taking  in  hand  to  overturn  au- 
thority. That  is  the  Law  of  the  Tribe.  But 
there  shines  above  it  on  heavenly  heights  the 
Law  of  Justice,  with  which  is  no  respect  of 
persons,  and  woe  to  that  person  who  strikes 
against  it! 

From  another  point  of  view  and  custom  of 
language  "persons"  are  the  very  subjects  which 
this  Law  contemplates ;  for  it  draws  an  infinite 


ENGLAND'S  KAISER-PROBLEM  27 

distinction  between  "persons"  and  "things." 
Every  right  of  man  over  man  is  a  personal  re- 
lation as  between  men;  and  tyranny  may  be 
described  as  the  degradation  of  the  subject, 
who  is  as  much  a  person  as  any  ruler,  to  the 
status  of  a  mere  "thing,"  a  piece  of  property, 
a  passive  instrument,  used  simply  as  a  means 
to  some  end  outside  himself.  To  use  a  whole 
society  called  a  Nation  after  this  fashion  is  be- 
yond possible  doubt  a  crime  against  Justice, 
and  a  very  high  crime.  That  kings  may  be 
guilty  of  it  the  "chronicles  of  wasted  time"  do 
all  too  clearly,  and  in  every  succeeding  genera- 
tion prove.  And  tyrannicide  has  answered 
it  with,  "Killing  no  murder."  As  Milton 
writes:  "No  nation  under  heaven  but  in  one 
age  or  other  hath  done  the  like."  Then,  re- 
ferring to  England,  he  proudly  adds — and  let 
us  admire  his  unparalleled  majesty  of  speech 
— "The  difference  only  is,  which  rather  seems 
to  us  matter  of  glory,  that  they  for  the  most 
part  have  without  form  of  law  done  the  deed 
by  a  kind  of  martial  justice,  we  by  the  deliber- 
ate and  well-weighted  sentence  of  a  legal 
judicature." 

Yes,  John  Milton,  so  did  the  Court  pro- 
nounce; and  yet  "by  the  power  of  the  sword 
and  a  law  not  to  be  found  in  any  of  the 


28        THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 

booljs."  Charles  Stuart  was  not  a  Doge,  like 
Marino  Faliero,  whose  vacant  place  in  the 
Hall  of  the  Great  Council  at  Venice  leaves 
on  the  traveller  a  more  distinct  impression 
than  all  the  portraits  of  all  the  Doges  painted 
there.  Could  an  anointed  hereditary  sovereign 
be  a  traitor?  He  denied  it,  England  asserted 
it,  and  Whitehall  closed  the  debate  and  the 
scene.  I  find  a  strange  but  true  resemblance 
as  I  turn  over  the  pages  of  Milton,  Clarendon, 
and  Carlyle,  between  the  actors,  the  causes, 
the  conclusions,  of  that  era  named  from  the 
"Great  Rebellion"  and  our  own.  The  Kaiser 
is  Charles  I;  the  Germans  are  the  Cavahers; 
we  are  the  Independents;  and,  as  I  trust,  our 
armies  will  be  the  Ironsides.  But  in  essence 
and  issue  the  problem  has  grown  from  British 
to  European,  to  American.  That  I  am  not 
inventing  an  imaginary  likeness  where  none 
exists,  I  will  now  endeavour  to  show. 

Charles  I  was  not  a  man  of  conspicuous 
ability  or  in  any  way  abnormal.  Each  of 
the  leading  Englishmen  who  took  his  part,  or 
who  acted  and  fought  on  the  other  side,  was 
in  some  degree  remarkable,  as  Laud,  Straf- 
ford, Hyde,  and  again  Hampden,  Falk- 
land, Pym — Milton  and  Cromwell  being  out 
of   all   comparison   with   any   in   their  time. 


ENGLAND'S  KAISER-PROBLEM  29 

The  romance  of  the  Stuarts  has  cast  a  glamour 
about  Charles  the  Martyr;  had  he  not  been 
martyred,  what  would  his  dearest  partisan^ 
have  cared  for  his  remembrance?  On  the 
other  hand,  Kaiser  Wilhelm,  though  no  true 
genius,  illustrates  the  view  put  forward  by 
Lombroso  that  insanity  bears  a  kinship  to 
genius;  for  the  Kaiser  is  abnormal,  explosive 
in  word  and  deed,  as  unresting  as  a  maniac, 
and  conceited  of  himself  as  artist,  tactician, 
preacher,  sportsman,  and  universal  dilettante. 
He,  too,  comes  of  the  Stuarts;  but  in  his 
longing  to  be  held  a  virtuoso  he  reproduces 
Frederick  the  Great,  and  would  lay  himself 
open  to  sarcasm  as  piercing  from  Voltaire. 
Yet,  on  this  difference  between  the  men  I 
am  going  to  set  up  an  argimient,  viz.  that  the 
evil  done  by  the  one  and  doing  by  the  other 
cannot  be  deemed  a  personal  characteristic. 
It  was  due  in  Charles,  and  it  is  evidently  trace- 
able in  the  Kaiser,  to  the  system  which  both  in- 
herited ;  it  is  the  King's  Evil. 

In  Charles  it  appeared  as  a  dull  obstinacy  to 
be  conquered  by  no  changes  of  fortune.  An- 
drew Marvell  praises  him  "upon  that  memor- 
able scene,"  where  he  laid  down  his  life.  I  will 
praise  him  too  for  such  dignity  and  courage, 
worthy   of   his    ancestress    at   Fotheringhay. 


30        THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 

But  he  was  doing  homage  to  a  false  ideal ;  and 
he  died  the  enemy  of  man.  In  like  manner  the 
German  Emperor,  who  would  carry  over  the 
world  that  same  false  doctrine  of  the  Absolute 
King,  may  in  this  be  a  sample  of  fortitude 
that  the  horrors  of  his  own  enactment  which 
he  has  witnessed  in  Belgium,  France  and 
Poland,  have  not  killed  him  outright. 
He  sees  them  and  sees  them  not.  Why? 
because  of  his  theory,  which  is  an  obsession, 
that  he,  William  of  Hohenzollern,  is  the 
purpose,  end,  and  divine  meaning  of  all  those 
myriad  creatures  sacrificed  to  his  designs. 
We  must  get  close  to  the  heart  of  this,  and 
we  can  do  it  most  directly  in  Milton's  prose 
works. 

I  know,  of  course,  what  Matthew  Arnold 
has  written,  scornfully  yet  not  without  warrant, 
of  Milton's  vituperation  in  arguing  with  his 
opponents.  If  Salmasius  scolds  like  a  fish- 
wife, the  poet  who  delights  our  soul  in  Comus 
retorts  with  a  licence  and  a  ribald  humour 
such  as  we  can  but  endure  in  Aristophanes. 
It  is  a  pity,  and  it  is  true.  Their  learning  in 
the  classics  led  equally  astray  the  French 
pedant,  who  knew  no  better,  and  the  poet 
engarlanded  who  should  not  have  trailed  his 
singing  robes  m  this  mire.     The  point  I  am 


ENGLAND'S  KAISER-PROBLEM  31 

enforcing  lies  free  of  sophistry  and  ribaldry 
alike.  It  is  as  patent  in  Salmasius  defending 
Charles  as  in  Milton's  attack  upon  him.  No 
veil  of  impenetrable  darkness  hangs  over  the 
life  and  the  deeds  of  Mary  Stuart's  grandson, 
like  the  cloud  which  hides  that  inner  tragedy 
of  the  Casket  Letters.  Here  the  facts  are  not 
in  dispute.  What  Charles  did  and  why  he  did 
it  were  patent  to  the  world  even  before  he 
came  to  his  untimely  end.  With  Mary  Queen 
of  Scots  the  problem  is  largely  a  matter  of 
evidence;  with  Charles  it  turns  almost  exclu- 
sively on  principle. 

And  so  Mary  appeals  to  lovers  of  romance 
and  the  insoluble;  but  when  we  are  discussing 
her  grandson  it  is  the  "instans  tyrannus,"  or 
the  Absolute  King  whom  he  embodies,  that 
fixes  our  attention.  Milton's  successive  works, 
Tlie  Tenure  of  Kings  and  Magistrates  (1649) , 
his  Ob se?'vations  on  Ormond's  Articles  of  Peace 
(the  same  year),  his  unsparing  Eikonoclastes, 
or  The  Image-Breaker  (also  1649),  in  answer 
to  Eikon  Basilike,  or  Portraiture  of  his  Sacred 
Majestyinhis Solitudes  and  Sufferings,  all  give 
us,  in  prose  not  less  grave  and  massy  than  the 
didactic  portions  of  his  poems,  the  lineaments 
under  which  he  saw  an  English  monarch  who 
would  play  the  Oriental  despot  and  make  of 


32        THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 

every  law  a  personal  decree  to  be  altered,  re- 
voked, or  disregarded  at  his  good  pleasure. 

Milton  showed  no  mercy;  some  accusations 
he  brought  which  were  monstrously  untrue; 
but  his  main  contention  was  just  and  demons- 
trable, as  he  proved,  out  of  Charles's  own 
mouth.  How,  indeed,  we  must  inquire,  should 
it  not  be  so,  when  the  king's  creed  about  king- 
ship was  what  we  know  it  to  have  been?  All 
that  the  hired  advocate  of  Ley  den,  Claude  Sau- 
maise,  desired  to  achieve  was  merely  to  call 
these  acts  of  royalty  by  another  name,  defend- 
ing them  by  the  prerogative  which,  in  his  philo- 
sophy born  of  the  Renaissance,  made  the  Su- 
preme Ruler  irresponsible.  And  all  that 
Milton  accomplished,  in  his  two  great  Defen- 
sions  of  the  English  People,  was  to  convert 
into  a  Latin  fit  for  gods  the  indictment  already 
framed  by  him  in  his  mother-tongue. 

While  setting  up  these  imperishable  monu- 
ments of  genius  and  freedom,  he  did  likewise 
deliver  sentence  on  every  after-attempt  to  en- 
slave Europe  under  the  pretence  of  the  divine 
right  of  autocracy.  He  speaks  to  us  now  with 
a  sanction  derived  from  the  victories  of  English 
political  wisdom,  which  in  two  hundred  years 
has  made  the  round  of  the  globe.  Nothing 
less  than  a  crucial  experiment  was  in  question. 


ENGLAND'S  KAISER-PROBLEM  33 

The  English  idea  of  constitutional  law  and 
ordered  liberty  we  know  by  experience,  and  all 
nations  are  learning  it,  is  as  commanding  in 
political  science  as  is  the  principle  of  gravita- 
tion formulated  by  Newton  in  physics.  If 
Newton  showed  how  the  whole  universe  is 
balanced,  our  creative  thinkers,  acting  on  a 
national  character  whose  instinct  for  justice 
they  rendered  into  practice,  have  discovered 
the  scales  of  reason  in  which  authority  and 
obedience  are  equally  poised.  Their  discovery 
is,  in  Tennyson's  words, 

"Our  crowned  Republic's  crowning  common  sense." 

The  image  of  a  king  that  Milton  broke  was, 
in  truth,  an  idol.  Long  worshipped,  ever  since 
Pharaoh  the  monarch  offered  sacrifice  to  him- 
self as  Pharaoh  the  god,  Ammon-Ra,  this 
illusion  confounded  the  man  with  his  office; 
and  while  "dressed  in  a  little  brief  authority," 
it  flung  round  him  the  divine  attributes. 
Charles  I  could  not  be  brought  to  un- 
derstand that  as  king  he  was  the  creation  of 
law,  and  that  the  law  of  the  community  over 
which  he  ruled.  If  he  has  even  the  shadow 
of  Divine  Right  it  falls  first  on  the  collective 
people.  This  to  generations  nurtured  on 
sound   political  thought   is   a   commonplace; 


34        THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 

to  the  old  Cavalier  and  the  modern  Junker  it 
is  blasphemy.  But  reason  and  fact  are  there 
to  show  that  society  made  the  king  and  not 
the  king  society.  Or,  putting  the  same  truth 
in  modern  terms,  the  nation  creates  its  own 
organs.  It  creates  each  of  them  for  its  own 
purpose,  and  when  they  fail  to  do  their  duty  or 
do  the  very  opposite,  the  body  politic  suffers, 
and  they  must  be  reformed  or  removed. 

Subjects,  then,  are  neither  the  king's  children 
nor  his  chattels ;  a  State  is  something  different 
in  origin  and  intention  from  a  family,  as  Aris- 
totle pointed  out  long  ago  when  he  wrote  the 
first  page  of  his  Politics,  and  as  Milton  quoted 
from  him  in  reply  to  Salmasius:  "For  that 
there  is  not  a  numerical  but  a  specifical  differ- 
ence betwixt  a  kingdom  and  a  family."  Milton 
continues,  "For  at  first  men  entered  into  so- 
cieties, not  that  any  one  might  insult  over  all 
the  rest,  but  that  in  case  any  should  injure 
another,  there  might  be  laws  and  judges  to 
protect  them  from  wrong,  or  at  least  to  punish 
the  wrongdoers."  And  Aristotle  sums  the 
matter  grandly:  "He  that  first  founded  civil 
society  was  the  cause  of  the  greatest  good ;  for 
as  by  the  completion  of  it  man  is  the  most 
excellent  of  living  beings,  so  without  law  and 
justice  he  would  be  the  worst  of  all.     For 


ENGLAND'S  KAISER-PROBLEM  35 

nothing  is  so  difficult  to  subdue  as  injustice  in 
arms;  but  these  arms  man  is  born  with,  viz. 
prudence  and  valour,  which  he  may  apply  to 
the  most  opposite  purposes ;  for  he  that  abuses 
them  will  be  the  most  wicked,  the  most  cruel, 
the  most  lustful,  and  most  gluttonous  being 
imaginable.  Justice  is,  then,  a  political  virtue, 
by  the  rules  of  which  the  State  is  regu- 
lated, and  these  rules  are  the  criterion  of  what 
is  right." 

Now  a  king  like  Charles  I  or  his  later  kins- 
man and  imitator,  the  Kaiser,  holds  himself 
to  be  not,  indeed,  a  beast  but  a  god ;  in  his  own 
eyes  he  is  hors  la  hi,  as  above  it  and  beyond 
its  reach.  When  he  declares,  as  Wilhelm  did, 
that  "the  king's  will  is  the  highest  law,"  and 
again,  "There  is  no  law  but  my  law";  or  asserts 
that  he  is  answerable  only  to  God,  meaning  in 
another  world,  at  the  Day  of  Judgment,  and 
certainly  not  to  men,  to  what  can  this  amount 
except  doing  away  with  all  penalties  annexed 
to  tyranny? 

In  such  case  the  "divinity  that  doth  hedge 
a  king"  makes  of  him  in  the  full  force  of  the 
words  a  chartered  libertine.  He,  the  supreme 
law-giver,  is  not  bound  by  law.  His  oath  is  not 
taken  to  the  people ;  therefore  Charles  argued 
that  he  might  construe  it  as  he  listed.     The 


36        THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 

promise  that  he  makes  is  not  a  pledge.  In 
every  negotiation  he  reserves  the  royal  right 
of  breaking  any  clause  or  all  together,  if  he 
thinks  any  part  derogatory  to  his  crown.  Of 
the  fact  he,  sole  and  singular,  is  the  judge  in 
his  own  breast,  and  this  he  terms  the  king's 
conscience.  In  short,  between  him  and  his 
people  there  is  no  reciprocity. 

Since  I  began  writing  this  chapter  an  august 
chief  of  a  very  great  nation  has  translated  the 
view  here  drawn  out  into  more  general  terms. 
"A  stedfast  concert  for  Peace,"  said  the  Presi- 
dent of  the  United  States  on  April  2,  1917, 
advising  Congress  to  declare  a  state  of  war  with 
Germany,  "can  never  be  maintained  except  by 
the  partnership  of  democratic  nations."  And 
why  so?  He  gives  the  reason:  "No  auto- 
cratic Government  could  be  trusted  to  keep 
faith  within  it  or  observe  its  covenants."  We 
have  at  length,  in  these  few  sentences,  plucked 
out  the  heart  of  arbitrary  power  and  laid  it 
bare  before  the  sun.  This  was  the  innermost 
spring  of  Charles's  dealings  with  friend  and 
foe.  This  to-day  is  Kaiserism,  a  crowned  and 
sceptred  Unfaith.  It  cries  by  the  lips  of  an 
earlier  tjTant  in  Shakespeare,  John  Lackland — 

"What   earthly   name   to   interrogatories 
Can  task  the  free  breath  of  a  sacred  king?" 


ENGLAND'S  KAISER-PROBLEM  37 


Beyond  the  simple  abuse  of  power  by  vio- 
lence, which  might  spring  from  various  bad 
motives,  but  need  be  no  more  than  a  passing 
plague,  lies  the  fundamental  error  of  a  system 
in  which  the  king — and  it  could  only  be  a  king 
— remains  for  ever  by  inlierent  claim  outside 
and  above  the  society  he  governs.  This  royal 
isolation,  "without  the  assistance  of  a  mortal 
hand"  to  restrain  while  supporting  the  rod  of 
empire,  is  what  I  have  pointed  to  as  the  "King's 
Evil."  It  breaks  the  divinely  ordained  bonds 
which  hold  men  together — the  pledged  word, 
the  recognised  human  dignity,  and  the  sense 
of  honour  that  should  follow  on  these  things. 
It  frustrates  the  very  end  for  which  authority 
exists. 

Of  the  Kaiser's  delinquencies  there  will  be 
enough,  said  by  and  by.  Looking  back  to  his 
Stuart  precursor  in  this  bad  way,  I  remark 
that  Whig  historians  have  dwelt  with  justice 
on  the  "instances  of  ill-faith,"  as  Hallam 
gently  observes,  "accumulated  as  they  are 
through  the  life  of  Charles,"  which  "render 
the  assertion  of  his  sincerity  a  proof  either  of 
historical  ignorance,  or  of  a  want  of  moral 
delicacy."  And  in  his  Essay  on  Milton  we 
find  INIacaulay  saying,  "The  nation  had  to  deal 
with  a  man  who  made  and  broke  promises 


38        THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 

with  equal  facility,  a  man  whose  honour  had 
been  a  hundred  times  pawned,  and  never  re- 
deemed." Ludlow  the  regicide  lays  this  down 
as  one  of  his  chief  reasons  for  consenting  to 
Charles's  death — Ludlow,  one  of  "the  bad  re- 
volting stars"  which  could  endure  him  no 
longer  as  the  sun  of  the  English  firmament. 
"I  was  fully  persuaded,"  he  writes,  "that  an 
accommodation  with  the  king  was  unsafe  to 
the  people  of  England,  and  unjust  and  wicked 
in  the  nature  of  it.  The  former,  besides  that 
it  was  obvious  to  all  men,  the  king  himself  had 
proved  by  the  duplicity  of  his  dealing  with  the 
Parliament,  which  manifestly  appeared  in  his 
own  papers,  taken  at  the  battle  of  Naseby  and 
elsewhere."  But  the  Glamorgan  papers 
proved  that  Charles  could  be  guilty  of  false- 
hood double  and  treble,  to  Irish  Catholics  and 
of  course  to  his  own  servants;  as  his  earlier 
unfaith  led  Strafford  vehemently  to  exclaim, 
"Put  not  your  trust  in  princes." 

Now  let  us  keep  always  in  muid  that  this 
unhappy  man's  dissimulation  and  downright 
lying  were  the  fruits  of  a  perverted  con- 
science; by  no  means  were  they  sins  of  frailty 
committed  by  a  weak  mortal  driven  to  bay. 
His  theory  justified,  and  his  mode  of  action 
thence  resulting  demanded  them.    To  talk,  as 


ENGLAND'S  KAISER-PROBLEM  39 

Hallam  does,  of  "insincerity"  is  superficial. 
According  to  the  doctrine  of  absolute  power 
laid  down,  for  example,  by  James  I,  and  ac- 
cepted, so  far  as  words  went,  by  some  of  the 
lawyers  and  a  multitude  of  the  divines  who 
helped  the  Stuarts  to  their  ruin  as  a  dynasty, 
the  king  owed  nothing  of  strict  obligation 
to  his  people  which  they  could  claim  or  vindi- 
cate in  any  effectual  way.  Truth  and  jus- 
tice he  owed  to  God,  not  to  them.  "Shall 
we  make  enquiries,"  said  Heath,  attorney- 
general,  in  arguing  on  behalf  of  the 
Crown,  "whether  his  commands  are  lawful? — 
Who  shall  call  in  question  the  justice  of  the 
king's  actions,  who  is  not  to  give  account 
for  them?"  Such  was  the  Royal  Charter 
which  brought  its  victim  in  front  of  the 
banqueting  room  at  Whitehall,  and  left  him 
there  under  the  axe  of  the  man  in  a  mask, 
well  representing  the  anonymous  People  who 
judged  him. 

But  England's  answer  to  this  whole  conten- 
tion had  been  given  by  a  great  lawyer  in  the 
Latin  axiom  which  to  all  intents  we  still  main- 
tain, "Nolumus  leges  Anglise  mutare,"  "We 
will  not  have  our  English  Constitution 
destroyed."  Before  the  Stuarts,  before  the 
Hohenzollerns,  there  was  the  Common  Law, 


40        THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 

protected  as  time  went  on  by  "the  ancient, 
constant,  and  undoubted  right  and  usage  of 
Parliaments  to  question  and  complain  of  all 
persons,  of  what  degree  soever,  found  grievous 
to  the  commonwealth,  in  abusing  the  power 
and  trust  committed  to  them  by  their  sove- 
reign." This,  in  effect,  amounted  to  the 
responsibility  of  the  king's  ministers,  and  since 
he  could  not  act  without  agents  it  took  away 
from  his  person  what  it  added  to  his  immunity. 
Not  the  man  Charles  Stuart,  but  Charles  King 
of  England  in  his  courts,  beginning  with  the 
High  Court  of  Parliament,  had  jurisdiction 
over  the  people  of  England.  The  Common 
Law  was  the  fount  of  freedom. 

The  nation,  thus  constituted,  was  superior 
to  all  its  parts,  not  excluding  the  king.  He 
had  no  such  thing  as  absolute  power;  it  was 
unknown  to  law  and  incompatible  with  it. 
*'His  Majesty's  immediate  act  and  will,"  being 
a  mere  personal  command,  had  no  force  in 
itself  to  compel  or  coerce  the  subject  in  his 
property  or  his  person;  all  must  be  done 
according  to  law,  and  with  a  remedy  in  the 
courts  for  any  wrong  suffered  by  illegal  pro- 
cedure. Otherwise,  "every  statute  from  the 
time  of  Magna  Chai'ta,  designed  to  protect  the 
personal  [and  the  real]  liberties  of  English- 


ENGLAND'S  KAISER-PROBLEM  41 

men,  became  a  dead  letter."  The  new  Magna 
Charta  (1628),  which  was  called  the  "Petition 
of  Right,"  and  to  which,  after  attempts  at 
evasion,  Charles  most  unwillingly  assented, 
links  modern  England  with  medieval,  while  it 
traces  the  line  upon  whose  mounting  curve  the 
world's  political  progress  henceforth  was  to  be 
followed. 

From  all  that  is  here  briefly  set  down  it  will 
appear  that,  while  the  execution  of  Charles 
might  be  described  in  Carlylean  language  as 
a  "doom's  blast"  of  autocracy,  and  a  notice  to 
quit  served  on  absolute  sovereigns  then  and 
ever  since,  the  solution  of  the  problem  raised 
by  him  lay  elsewhere  than  on  the  scaffold. 
Regicide  is  no  remedy.  Still  indulging  in  quo- 
tation, we  might  say,  and  it  is  the  truth  of 
history,  "Uno  avulso,  non  deficit  alter."  "The 
royal  oak  is  not  so  easily  cut  down."  And 
by  wisdom,  as  was  proved  in  this  fortunate 
realm,  we  may  preserve  the  golden  bough. 
The  most  illustrious  tyrannicide  that  ever 
stained  human  chronicles,  that  "lofty  scene, 
to  be  acted  over  in  states  unborn  and  accents 
yet  unknown,"  when,  according  to  Cicero,  there 
was  no  honest  Roman  but  dipped  his  hands  in 
Caesar's  blood,  what  good  thing  did  it  bring 
forth?     It  gave   Rome  an  Augustus   for   a 


42        THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 

Julius,  no  gold  instead  of  bronze,  but  a  con- 
summate actor  instead  of  "the  foremost  man 
of  all  this  world."  We  will  not  canonise  our 
tyrant-killers.  Let  us  show  mankind  a  more 
excellent  way.  Milton,  whose  indictment  of 
Charles  cannot,  in  its  leading  points,  be  gain- 
said, was  under  the  necessity  of  taking  service 
with  Cromwell,  a  king  de  facto  stern  as  death ; 
and  Cromwell,  I  think  honestly,  wanted  to  be 
king  by  law  that  the  ancient  Constitution  of 
the  land  might  not  perish. 

Just  upon  forty  years  after  Charles  had 
expiated  his  evil  deeds,  a  son  of  his,  not  one 
atom  less  blind  and  obstinate  than  his  father, 
provoked  the  nation  by  lawless  attacks  on  the 
persons  and  property  of  the  men  of  England. 
But  this  time  the  axe  did  not  fall.  A  legal 
fiction  saved  the  people  from  any  repetition 
of  so  useless  an  expedient.  James  was  held 
to  have  abdicated,  and  the  "Declaration  of 
Right"  completed  that  true  restoration  of 
English  liberties  which  the  "Petition  of 
Right"  had  called  for  but  could  only  prophesy. 
The  old  immemorial  relation  of  king  and  people 
was  renewed.  Their  compact,  binding  on  both 
sides,  took  its  full  effect.  Monarchy  was 
limited,  not  abolished.  Ministers  acted  by  the 
royal  authority,  but  were  responsible  to  the 


ENGLAND'S  KAISER-PROBLEM  43 

nation  in  Parliament  assembled.  The  power 
of  the  purse  remained  with  the  Commons.  And 
by  the  striking  device  of  the  annual  ^lutiny 
Bill  the  power  of  the  sword,  for  control  of 
which  the  Great  Rebellion  had  come  about, 
was  left  in  the  King's  hands,  yet  on  con- 
dition of  his  using  it  wisely  in  deference  to 
the  Parliament's  decisions  touching  peace  and 
war. 

Every  one  of  these  provisions,  we  see  now 
and  experience  proves,  was  a  master-stroke  of 
genius.  No  wonder  that  the  British  Constitu- 
tion became,  during  the  eighteenth  century, 
"the  envy  and  admiration  of  surrounding 
nations!"  Who  will  not  confess  that  in  a 
matter  of  highest  moment,  where  the  Renais- 
sance went  utterly  wrong,  these  Pyms  and 
Seldens  and  Maynards  and  Halifaxes  and 
Somerses — let  me  be  just  and  add  the  name 
of  John  Locke,  their  philosopher  in  this 
province — had  seen  the  true  idea  of  a  self- 
governed,  self-balanced  community,  free  at 
last  from  false  mystical  delusions  which  them- 
selves led  to  anarchy  by  making  tyranny 
inevitable  and  eternal?  It  was  the  axe  of 
absolute  power,  not  the  glaive  of  freedom, 
that  slew  Charles  Stuart.  He  perished  by  his 
own  weapon,  for  in  the  last  analysis  the  tyrant 


44        THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 

relies  on  brute  force  as  the  rebel  does  who 
strikes  in  a  frenzy  against  him. 

England  had  her  Kaiser  problem  three  cen- 
turies ago,  which  it  took  her  a  hundred  years 
to  solve — reckoning  from  James  I  to  George 
I — and  most  triumphantly  did  she  meet  and 
solve  it.  There  was  a  second  problem,  not  less 
important  to  the  welfare  of  mankind — ^that 
of  administering  justice  justly, — and  thanks 
to  her  trial  by  jury,  her  system  of  evidence, 
and  the  independence  of  her  judges,  she  has 
solved  that  also.  These  are  among  her  proud- 
est titles  to  the  gratitude  of  all  succeeding 
ages.  They  constitute  her  the  champion  of 
the  rights  of  man,  which  are  God-given  and 
can  never  be  repealed.  They  justify,  while 
they  explain,  the  magnificent  fact  that  in  this 
war  she  is  leading  the  nations  to  victory. 


CHAPTER  III 


Prussia's  Rise  and  Claim  to  "Kultur" 

I  CANNOT  begin  what  I  have  now  to 
throw  on  paper  without  first  paying  a 
tribute  of  affection  and  regret  to  the 
memory  of  my  dear  old  German  master,  Karl 
Kemen,  who  died  last  year  at  Boppard  on 
the  Rhine.  My  heart  is  heavy  when  I  think 
of  him  and  of  our  last  excursion  together  in 
the  company  of  his  devoted  wife.  It  was  on 
a  Sunday  in  summer — a  German  Sunday — 
bright  and  peaceful;  and  we  went  by  the 
river  to  Konigsstein,  to  see  the  castle  there. 
"O  Deutschland,  hoch  in  Ehre!"  sings  the 
minstrel;  and  how  gladly  would  I  take  up 
the  refrain!  My  venerated  professor  spoke 
and  wrote  his  three  languages — German, 
French,  English — idiomatically  perfect.  He 
was  by  far  the  best  master  I  ever  had.  He 
rather  discouraged  my  eagerness  to  plunge 
into  Kant  and  Hegel.  But  he  would  promise 
me,  as  a  reward  for  undertaking  Schiller,  that 
I  should  enjoy  the  Nibelungen  Lied — which 

45 


46         THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 

I  have  since  done,  though  I  prefer  the  Ice- 
landic original,  the  Volsiings'  Lay — and  it 
pleased  him  greatly  when  I  ranged  about  in 
the  dialects  of  the  Fatherland.  He  was  a 
fervent  Catholic  of  Austrian  sympathies,  and 
an  intimate  personal  friend  of  the  late  Arch- 
duke Stephen,  who  wrote  to  him  constantly. 
He  saw  a  good  deal  at  Frankfort,  in  early 
years,  of  Count  Bismarck,  whom,  not  to  put 
a  fine  point  on  it,  he  detested.  Were  all,  or 
most,  of  his  nation  like  the  Rhinelander  Karl 
Kemen,  I  should  not  now  be  writing  this  book. 
God  rest  my  dear  friend's  soul! 

I  required  no  spur  to  adventure  myself  in 
German  literature,  German  mythology;  but 
perhaps  it  may  be  worth  while  to  record  that 
I  drew  none  of  my  enthusiasm  from  Carlyle, 
whom  I  did  not  study  or  take  to  until  I  had 
gone  through  thousands  of  pages  in  the  authors 
that  inspired  him.  The  Germany  thus  made 
known  to  me  I  shall  love  and  cherish  until  my 
dying  day.    It  is  an  immense  possession. 

"Mein  Vermachtniss,  wie  herrlich  weit  und  breit!" 

It  is  a  land  of  hills  and  rivers  and  fine  old 
cities.  I  may  not  hope  ever  to  set  eyes  again 
upon  the  pleasant  streams  and  bluffs  of  Rhine 
and  Moselle,   or  the  Main  and  the  Neckar 


PRUSSIA'S  RISE  TO  "KULTUR"  47 

and  the  Inn,  with  so  many  flourishing  dales 
between.  But  I  carry  with  me  in  remem- 
brance, sometimes  I  dream  about,  Cologne  and 
Strasburg,  Heidelberg  and  Niirnberg,  often 
under  a  high-sailing  moon.  And  who  that  has 
looked  ever  at  Rolandseck  and  the  Seven 
Mountains  from  the  west  at  eventide  but  must 
feel  melancholy  when  he  thinks  that  he  shall 
never  spend  such  an  hour  again?  This  new 
*'Hermannschlacht"  has  buried  on  the  battle- 
field my  legend-haunted  Germany  of  music, 
romance,  meditation,  travel.  Bismarck's  leg- 
acy of  statecraft,  blood  and  iron,  has  made  an 
end  of  all  that. 

Well,  therefore,  do  I  know  the  memories 
that  should  furnish  forth  a  Trauerrede,  or 
funeral  oration,  over  the  corpse  of  the  Ger- 
many which  is  no  more,  and  which  at  first  was 
haunted,  then  murdered,  by  an  evil  demon 
fulfilling  perfectly  Aristotle's  account  of  "in- 
justice in  arms,"  and  of  the  power  which  abuses 
prudence  and  valour,  as  "the  most  wicked, 
the  most  cruel,  the  most  lustful,  and  most 
gluttonous  being  imaginable."  How  accurate 
a  description  of  modern  Prussia  these  words 
yield  is  clear  from  the  evidence,  day  by  day 
steadily  growing,  of  what  went  before  the  war 
and    what    has    happened    since.      Nothing 


48        THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 

like  it,  so  far  as  my  reading  extends,  can  be 
quoted  from  history,  though  Assyrians,  Huns, 
and  Mongols  might  have  made  to  the  Prus- 
sian war-system  a  gift  of  certain  devilish 
ingredients  for  its  cauldron.  The  final  mix- 
ture, the  quintessence  forced  upon  a  shud- 
dering world,  is,  however,  as  unexampled  as 
envenomed. 

When  we  say  that  civilisation  is  at  stake  we 
utter  less  than  the  truth.  For  something  still 
more  near  to  our  hearts  than  the  outward  frame 
and  order  of  society  is  in  peril.  Prussia,  with 
malice  aforethought,  has  made  war  on  Hu- 
manity. Let  not  any  one  suppose  that  I,  a 
man  advanced  in  years,  a  priest  and  a  student 
living  far  away  from  centres  of  political  strife, 
desire  to  indulge  in  the  language  of  Thersites. 
Had  the  story,  tested  and  proved,  of  the  Ger- 
man occupation  of  Belgium  and  France 
been  other  than  it  is,  would  not  my  judgment 
have  also  been  different?  We  know  in  this 
country,  and  we  bear  witness  among  ourselves, 
that  this  nation  at  large  did  not  imagine  such 
portents  of  deliberate  cruelty  to  be  possible 
in  the  forward  march  of  European  armies,  until 
they  came  to  pass.  They  bewilder  our  thought 
as  much  as  they  appal  our  feeling.  They 
put  a  new  face  upon  war  between  Western 


PRUSSIA'S  RISE  TO  "KULTUR "  49 


peoples.  But  I  am  thus  led  to  inquire  in 
what  sense  the  Prussians  can  be  considered 
Western. 

Historically,  they  never  formed  part  of  the 
Roman  Empire.  As  we  saw  in  my  first  chap- 
ter, the  permanent  division  made  in  364  by 
Valentinian  between  West  and  East  bound  up 
Illyricum,  Italy,  the  Gauls,  Spain,  and  Britain 
into  a  single  confederacy,  with  its  Latin  type 
of  culture  and  its  one  religion,  of  which  the 
capital  was  Rome.  I  call  this  the  Western 
world.  And  to  it  the  Prussians  did  not  belong 
at  any  time.  Their  significance  for  us  lies  in 
the  opposition  which  now,  after  ages  of  dis- 
sent from  its  ideals,  has  burst  out  from  them 
in  a  war  for  its  destruction. 

I  stand  here  at  the  height  of  my  view, 
gazing  down  on  Roman  and  Teuton — 
but  a  Prussianised  Teuton — locked  in  deadly 
combat. 

Heine,  that  arrogant  young  Jew  of  genius, 
after  once  calling  upon  the  British  governor 
of  Heligoland — we  had  not  yet  made  a  present 
of  it  to  our  enemy — drew  from  that  single 
specimen  a  formula,  and  defined  John  Bull 
as  the  "man-machine."  There  was  never 
perhaps  a  stroke  of  satire  that  more  widely 
missed  its  mark.     Consider  a  moment  what 


50        THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 

we  understand  by  a  machine.  It  has  neither 
soul  nor  ideas  nor  feeling;  all  its  parts  are 
made  by  a  power  not  itself;  it  moves  only  as 
it  is  driven;  it  obeys  thought  put  into  its 
working  but  has  none  of  its  own;  and  when 
it  is  hurt  it  cannot  repair  the  damage,  or 
only  by  another  piece  of  equally  mindless 
machinery.  Heine  saw  that  English  inventors 
were  constantly  making  machines;  therefore, 
he  argued,  they  must  be  machines  themselves. 
The  eighteenth  century,  which  grew  acquainted 
with  the  modern  Englishman  as  never  before, 
and  which  laid  stress  on  the  "argument  from 
design,"  knew  better.  It  recognised  in  him 
an  originality  of  thought,  a  resolution  in  going 
his  own  way,  and  a  self-control  under  cir- 
cumstances where  others  would  be  lost,  such 
as  to  set  him  in  a  class  the  very  contrary  of 
the  mechanical,  and,  as  we  now  say,  the  stand- 
ardised. Attentive  readers  will  have  already 
grasped  the  reason  why  this  blunder  of  Heine's 
must  be  flung  into  the  dust-heap  of  exploded 
fallacies.  I  am  going  to  retort  on  him,  and 
I  shall  not  blunder,  they  may  take  my  word 
for  it. 

This  lively  Jew  ought  to  have  looked  nearer 
home,  if  he  was  searching  for  Lamettrie's 
''L'Homme-Machine."      There    is    a    mixed 


PRUSSIA'S  RISE  TO  "KULTUR"  51 

race,  dwelling  along  the  shores  of  the  Baltic 
Sea,  in  Prussia  West  and  East,  in  Pomerania, 
in  Brandenburg,  which  entirely  fits  the  defi- 
nition. "Five  hundred  miles  and  more  to 
the  east  of  Brandenburg,"  says  Carlyle,  in  his 
characteristic  way,  "lies  a  Country  then  [about 
997]  as  now  called  Preussen  (Prussia  Proper) , 
inhabited  by  Heathens,  where  also  endeavours 
at  conversion  [to  Christianity]  are  going  on, 
though  without  success  hitherto."  I  entirely 
agree;  the  description  is  felicitous.  He  con- 
tinues: "In  Henry  the  Fowler's  time,  and 
long  afterwards,  Preussen  was  a  vehemently 
Heathen  country;  the  natives  a  miscellany  of 
rough  Serbic  Wends,  Letts,  Swedish  Goths, 
or  Dryasdust  knows  not  what.  .  .  .  Dryas- 
dust knows  only  that  these  Preussen  were 
a  strong-boned,  iracund  herdsman  and  fisher 
people;  highly  averse  to  being  interfered  with, 
especially  in  their  religion."  Quite  so,  and 
they  have  not  altered.  But  a  people  more 
unlike  the  Germans  who  had  been  schooled  by 
the  Roman  Empire  and  the  Roman  Church 
you  would  not  easily  find.  The  Rhine- 
dwellers,  Suabians,  Franconians,  even  the 
Saxons  along  the  Elbe,  afford  another  type  and 
a  less  forbidding  nature  to  our  observation. 
An  English  lady  residing  not  many  years 


52        THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 

ago  in  Pomerania  was  told  that  the  tribes 
which  emigrated  to  Britain  had  once  lived 
there.  She  answered  that,  if  it  were  true, 
they  must  have  taken  away  "all  the  smiles" 
when  they  went,  for  she  had  not  seen  one 
on  the  face  of  any  of  the  natives  left  behind. 
The  fatal  defect,  a  lack  of  humour,  is  emi- 
nently Prussian,  and  it  implies  a  sameness  in 
individuals  very  favourable  to  despotic  rule. 
The  Prussian  Spartans,  like  their  archetypes 
in  the  Greek  world,  are  of  a  sullen  temper, 
slow  to  construe  a  different  mind,  as  well 
as  implacable  when  offended.  Since  the  give- 
and-take  of  an  urbane  converse  lies  beyond 
them,  it  irritates  their  pride ;  and  they  become 
violent  on  the  misunderstanding  into  which 
they  are  constantly  falling.  Hence  they  make 
bad  masters.  The  colonial  policy  of  the  Em- 
pire is  admittedly  a  failure  everywhere.  It  is 
neither  just  nor  gentle,  therefore  it  cannot 
succeed.  Often  during  the  war  Prussian 
newspapers  have  asked  wonderingly,  "Why 
have  we  no  friends  in  the  wide  world?" 
Here  we  may  perceive  the  reason. 

These  miscellaneous  Wends,  Swedish  Goths, 
and  other  East  Europeans  spread  themselves 
into  Brandenburg,  and,  getting  still  more 
mixed,   they   appear   in  history   as   "men   of 


PRUSSIA'S  RISE  TO  '  KULTUR'  53 


the  Mark,"  forming  a  population  which  was 
never  true  German,  waiting  until  Teutonic 
knights  and  Hohenzollern  baihffs  out  of 
Suabia  should  beat  them  into  human- Christian 
shape.  It  is  always  to  be  noted  that  the 
Hohenzollerns  were  not  themselves,  any  more 
than  they  are  now,  of  the  Prussian  stock. 
This  fact  is  essential  to  their  story  and  to  us. 
The  Royal  family  of  Prussia  was,  and  is, 
German.  Hence  it  served  as  a  chemical 
reagent  to  unite  elements  very  unlike  and 
otherwise  irreconcilable.  That  function  it 
has  performed  again  and  again,  so  that  we 
behold  the  Catholic  peoples  of  the  Rhine 
brought  into  one  huge  confederacy  with  Pro- 
testants of  Stettin  and  Konigsberg,  utterly 
different  from  them  in  race  and  religion. 

Now  let  us  dwell  for  a  moment  on  this  highly 
significant  duty  assigned  to  the  erstwhile 
"Burgraves  of  Niirnberg  in  Frankenland." 
Carlyle  says  that  they  were  "a  thrifty,  sted- 
fast,  diligent,  clear-sighted,  stout-hearted  line 
of  men,"  and  "always  of  a  growing,  gaining 
nature."  Their  first  office  at  Niirnberg,  granted 
by  Frederick  Barbarossa  towards  1170,  in- 
volved, he  tells  us,  "a  talent  for  governing  as 
well  as  for  judging;  talent  for  fighting  also, 
in  cases  of  extremity,  and  what  is  still  better, 


54         THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 

a  talent  for  avoiding  to  fight."  We  will  take 
this  to  be  a  true  description  of  the  Hohen- 
zollerns  at  their  best.    What  follows? 

Surely  this,  that  it  was  their  business  under 
Providence  to  bring  to  the  fierce  heathen  and 
non-Roman  tribes  over  whom,  by  fighting  or  by 
purchase,  they  in  due  time  acquired  lordship  the 
blessings  of  religion  and  civilisation.  Civilisa- 
tion from  the  Greco-Roman  world,  which  had 
stretched  itself  long  ages  back  as  far  as  Rhine 
and  Danube;  and  religion  from  the  Hebrew- 
Roman  tradition,  of  which  the  Papacy  was 
the  head  and  front.  By  the  standard,  then, 
of  a  double  inheritance,  always  reckoned 
in  this  ''objective,"  historical,  and  Western 
fashion,  which  is  no  less  real  than  intelligible, 
we  will  measure  the  achievements  of  the 
House  of  Niirnberg,  advancing  itself  and 
winning  its  way  by  cash  down  in  the  years 
1412-17,  and  at  the  Council  of  Constance, 
into  the  Electorate  of  Brandenburg,  which  it 
bought  from  the  Emperor  Sigismund.  Into 
"the  grand  tide  of  European  events,"  the 
line  of  Hohenzollern  enters  at  this  point  with 
Frederick  the  Statthalter. 

It  goes  back,  we  saw,  to  1170,  when  Henry 
II  of  England  was  acquiring  the  disastrous 
lordship  of  Ireland,  which  has  been  the  one  con- 


PRUSSIA'S  RISE  TO  "KULTUR"  55 


spicuous,  if  not  irretrievable,  failure  of  the 
English  "talent  for  governing  as  well  as  for 
judging."  Its  entry  on  a  wider  stage  is  timed 
at  the  hour  of  Constance,  where  nations  pa- 
raded as  churches,  though  not  yet  broken  off 
from  Catholic  unity.  It  registers  all  its  "gi-ow- 
ing  and  gaining,"  so  far  as  the  year  1701,  by 
forcing  its  way  in  among  crowned  royalties, 
and  taking  the  name  of  Prussia  to  cover  its 
conquests — this  within  a  dozen  years  after  the 
Enghsh  "glorious  Revolution,"  which  decided 
that  Britain  should  be  a  royal  democracy,  not 
a  royal  absolutism. 

The  rest  of  the  story  is  sketched  and 
summed  up  in  Frederick  II,  "commonly 
called  the  Great";  and  his  successors  count 
only  in  the  degree  by  which  they  have  carried 
out  his  plans,  attempting  to  do  with  and  for 
Europe  that  which  he  had  done  with  and  for 
Prussia.  In  detail  most  of  the  chronicle  is 
deplorably  dull,  not  offering  scenes  on  which 
the  picturesque  narrator  could  show  skill  or 
be  pathetic  and  arresting.  Carlyle  himself, 
who  endured  boredom  (Langeweile)  in  re- 
search as  if  he  were  a  professor  at  G<)ttin- 
gen,  calls  Frederick's  history,  told  by  the 
Prussian  Dryasdust,  "a  wise-spread,  inor- 
ganic, trackless  matter;  dismal  to  your  mind. 


56        THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 

and  barren  as  a  continent  of  Brandenburg 
sand."  Imagine  what  sand  of  the  Sahara 
must  the  story  be  of  other  Hohenzollern 
princes,  who  had  inherited  merely  the  eccen- 
tricities or  the  obstinacy  of  their  ancestors! 
Happily,  the  object  I  pursue  can  be  secured 
without  crossing  the  desert.  We  may  skirt 
it  where  it  borders  on  civilisation.  In 
plainer  words,  my  concern  is  with  Prussia's 
designs  on  the  West,  or  again  on  the  South- 
East;  with  Pan-Germanism  and  its  implied 
hegemony  over  Europe.  On  the  one  side, 
Church  and  Civilisation;  on  the  other,  Kaiser 
and  Kultur. 

"Kultur,"  by  dint  of  repetition  since  1914, 
has  grown  to  be  mere  slang,  and  what  it 
means,  or  whether  it  ever  had  a  meaning, 
cannot  be  determined  without  some  effort. 
It  has  a  meaning,  nevertheless;  it  fixes  a 
certain  ideal  as  the  scope  of  endeavour  among 
modern  Germans;  it  puts  into  this  War  a 
soul  of  evil — that  very  demon  which,  I  say, 
first  haunted,  and  now  has  done  to  moral 
death,  the  Deutschland  of  our  young  enthu- 
siasm. After  no  small  searching  in  confused 
and  always  arrogant  statements  by  the  Ger- 
mans themselves,  who  praise  their  Kultur  as 
the  latest  and  best  of  gospels,  to  be  spread 


PRUSSIA'S  RISE  TO  '  KULTUR "  57 

wherever  they  march  and  conquer,  I  believe 
it  is  possible  to  draw  the  line  which  separates 
us  from  them  in  social  philosophy.  We  are 
always  to  bear  in  mind  that  the  War  is  a  war 
of  ideas;  hence  it  derives  for  us  the  grandeur, 
nay,  the  holiness  of  a  crusade ;  while  in  genera- 
tions to  come  it  will  be  celebrated,  we  must 
hope  and  do  our  utmost  to  ensure,  as  the 
War  of  Liberation.  I  have  in  few  strokes 
done  what  I  deemed  so  far  requisite  by  way 
of  showing  the  political  issues  in  question, 
though  more  is  to  be  added.  Above  these, 
however,  rises  a  loftier  region,  within  which 
the  sources  lie  hid  from  which  pohtical  differ- 
ences spring.    Let  us  go  up  thither. 

Three  words  need  now  to  be  distinguished 
—Civilisation,  "Bildung,"  and  "Kultur." 
They  are  not  equivalents,  though  frequently 
so  treated,  with  necessary  darkness  ensuing. 
All  are  of  late  origin.  Civilisation,  which 
might  be  termed  the  subject-matter  of  Aris- 
totle's Politics^  is  the  right  manner  of  men 
living  together  so  as  to  attain  the  most  desir- 
able human  life.  Its  virtues,  on  the  received 
Greek  system,  are  prudence,  justice,  fortitude, 
and  temperance.  It  rests,  therefore,  on  a 
moral  foundation;  it  demands  in  citizens 
intelligence  and  valour;  it  uses  physical  force 


58        THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 

when  reason  alone  will  not  avail;  and  it  sub- 
mits willingly  to  a  higher  order  of  truths  and 
energies,  such  as  the  Christian  religion,  when 
satisfied  of  those  claims.  Civilisation  is  chiefly 
mental,  fashioning  the  character  not  by  custom 
only,  or  by  fear,  but  from  within  by  the  light 
of  thought,  and  the  harmony  of  a  city  thus 
constituted  Plato  compares  to  a  mighty  song. 
It  is  the  song  of  Law  and  Freedom  combining 
"in  a  pure  concent,"  and  in  "perfect  diapason." 
A  prevailing  amenity  of  manners,  refinement 
of  living,  high  tone  without  insolence,  sim- 
plicity and  yet  the  cultivation  of  the  arts 
which  we  term  liberal,  with  examples  to 
persuade  rather  than  to  strike  terror — these 
are  some  of  the  tokens  by  which  we  know 
when  a  State  is  civilised. 

I  ought  now  to  recite  for  my  own  pleasure 
a  few,  at  least,  of  the  sentences  in  which 
Pericles  has  praised  "Athens,  the  eye  of 
Greece,  mother  of  arts,"  and  model  to  us, 
especially  under  the  British  flag,  of  civilisa- 
tion altogether  human,  though  not  developed 
twenty-three  centuries  ago  to  the  point  that 
we  have  reached.  There  will,  however,  be 
a  more  fitting  occasion  when  I  come  to  the 
heroic  "matter  of  Britain,"  as  illustrated  in 
this  present  struggle.     I  pass  from  the  word 


PRUSSIA'S  RISE  TO  '  KULTUR"  59 


Civilisation,  with  its  backward  glances  towards 
"the  glory  that  was  Greece  and  the  grandeur 
that  was  Rome,"  and  I  take  up  for  examina- 
tion the  word  "Bildung." 

It  was  coined  by  a  master,  by  Johann  Wolf- 
gang Goethe,  who  has  stamped  on  its  face  his 
own  image  and  likeness,  while  the  reverse 
shows  sovereign  Zeus  and  his  eagle  at  his 
side.  The  thunderbolt,  I  fancy,  is  wanting. 
To  speak  without  metaphor,  "Bildung"  corre- 
sponds closely  to  the  word  "Culture,"  as  most 
of  us,  taught  by  JNIatthew  Arnold,  would  apply 
it.  "Bildung,"  then,  is  the  liberal  education 
formerly  given  at  our  universities,  but  con- 
tinued by  the  man  himself  in  after-life,  and 
combining  literature,  art,  and  science,  accord- 
ing to  individual  capacity,  so  that  the  result 
shall  be  a  nature  lifted  to  the  heights  of  "per- 
sonality," self-poised,  enlightened,  realised  to 
the  full.  Goethe's  vow  is  thrice  famous:  "Im 
Ganzen,  Guten,  Schonen,  resolut  zu  leben" — 
"to  live  stedfastly  in  the  idea  of  the  Whole, 
the  Good,  and  the  Fair."  If  we  define  Civilisa- 
tion as  reason  ordering  the  relations  of  men  to 
one  another  in  society,  we  may  define  "Bild- 
ung" as  reason  ordering  the  relations  of  the 
individual  to  itself;  in  other  words,  to  the 
intelligent    plan    disclosed    in    the    universe. 


60        THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 

When  its  inspiration  is  supremely  successful, 
the  philosopher  comes  forth,  "a  spectator  of 
all  time  and  all  existence."  Plato,  Spinoza, 
Goethe  himself,  Emerson,  exhibit  under  their 
several  aspects  this  true  notion  of  Culture. 

When  I  missed  on  Goethe's  "golden 
rondure"  the  thunderbolt  of  Zeus,  I  meant 
it  not  as  rebuke  but  distinction.  Culture  is 
light,  not  force.  Ideas  have  power  in  their 
quality  of  reason;  but  "why  and  wherefore" 
differ  from  "shall  and  will."  "Pacem  summa 
tenent,"  "peace  reigns  on  the  heights,"  sang 
our  sad  philosopher-poet,  Lucretius.  And 
Goethe  himself,  and  Emerson  afterwards,  have 
noted  that  the  intellect  is  not  swayed  by 
interest.  Its  kingdom  is  not  of  this  world 
in  any  Baconian  sense  that  "knowledge  is 
power."  The  contemplative  man  desires  no 
power.  He  dwells  in  that  land  very  far  off 
where  power  cannot  come.  Hence  it  was  that 
the  great — deservedly  great — German  thinkers 
and  poets  of  the  eighteenth  century  were 
cosmopolite,  or  would  have  welcomed  with 
Immanuel  Kant  a  system  of  perpetual  peace. 

Let  it  not  be  said,  by  the  way,  that,  Kant 
being  a  Prussian,  my  description  of  that 
unsmiling  people  is  refuted.  Kant  was  of 
Scottish     descent     and     showed     it     by     his 


PRUSSIA'S  RISE  TO  "KULTUR"  61 

power  of  thought,  by  his  caution  even  in  the 
boldest  enterprise  undertaken  by  mortal  man, 
in  his  dry  and  sly  humour,  and  his  practical 
reason.  However,  this  shall  be  a  digression. 
To  return.  The  Germans,  from  1750  on- 
wards, who  created  a  revolution  in  thought, 
were  all  partisans  of  the  pure  idea.  Lessing, 
Herder,  Schiller,  Goethe,  and  the  youthful 
Fichte,  had  as  little  conception  of  "Deutsch- 
land,  mein  Vaterland,"  as  Frederick  the  Great, 
whose  main  ambition  was  to  be  a  bad  French 
poet.  For  all  these,  Germany  did  not  exist 
as  a  country  ''in  rerum  natura."  The  unique 
Jean  Paul,  least  French  of  all  men  created, 
proves  by  the  absurd  mixture  in  his  name  (a 
magpie  mixture ) ,  that  he,  dwelling  at  Hof  in 
Voigtland,  would  not  have  flown  out  angrily 
had  the  rare  tourist  mistaken  him  for  a  French 
subject.  That  is  quite  as  wonderful  as 
Carlyle's  endless  preoccupation  with  Voltaire. 
But  it  is  demonstration  plain  that  the  German 
of  a  hundred  and  twenty  years  ago  was  not 
a  patriot  and  had  no  country,  as  we  now 
interpret  this  challenging  word. 

Mind  you,  reader  of  another  age  and  taste, 
I  love  Jean  Paul  Richter;  perhaps  I  am  the 
sole  possessor  in  this  Shakespearian  neigh- 
bourhood of  his  whole  works.    He  is  German 


62         THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 

to  the  core,  not  Prussian  at  all.  Who  could 
dream  of  so  gentle  a  soul  delighting  to  burn 
down  churches,  to  trample  in  the  mud  the 
poor  peasant's  hut,  and  to  inoculate  his  little 
children  with  germs  of  consumption?  Horror 
unspeakable!  Jean  Paul  was  heavy,  lumpish, 
naive,  infantine,  like  the  genuine  old  Schwab; 
but  when  the  spirit  caught  him  by  the  hair  he 
flew  through  mid-heaven.  His  pathos,  hu- 
mour, quaintness,  wisdom,  melted  then  into  a 
sunset  glow,  rich  with  dying  hues  of  the  even- 
tide, behind  them  a  crystalline  depth,  tranquil 
as  eternity.  This  was  the  man  who  seemed 
to  make  even  Goethe's  culture  a  thing  of 
artifice,  and  to  transcend  it  by  pure  emotion 
like  a  seraph  burning  in  God's  love  to  unsullied 
flame.  How  much  more  was  this  than  the 
liberal  arts  could  give!  But  enough  has  been 
said  to  show  what  "Bildung"  meant  for  the 
choicest  German  singers  and  sagamen  in  days 
unhappily  gone. 

What,  then,  and  at  last,  is  Kultur?  It  is 
not  civilisation  in  the  acknowledged  Western 
sense.  It  is  most  unlike  "Bildung,"  as  Goethe 
conceived  that  magnificent  Greek  idea  of  the 
man  his  own  intellectual  centre,  asking,  "How 
does  the  world  seem  to  me?  How  am  I  akin 
to   it?"      Kultur   is   the   idea   of   mechanism 


PRUSSIA'S  RISE  TO  "KULTUR "  63 


made  perfect.  Pardon  me,  I  am  astonished 
at  the  accuracy  of  my  own  definition,  which 
no  living  Prussian — not  even  ISIaximilian 
Harden,  who  is  a  Jew — has  had  the  wit  to 
light  upon.  Yet,  how  obvious  when  stated! 
The  pattern  of  Prussia  (we  registered  that 
truth  some  pages  back)  is  Sparta.  It  is  the 
War-State  of  Europe,  precisely  as  Sparta  was 
the  War- State  of  Hellas.  Blood  and  iron  sum 
them  both  up.  Sparta  had,  indeed,  physical 
beauty,  which  in  the  Prussian  is  often  replaced 
by  a  gigantic  stature  and  those  unmeaning 
blue  eyes  which  Tacitus  called  "truces  et 
cgeruleos,"  where  a  fierce  or  cunning  glitter  may 
change  the  otherwise  settled  dulness.  But  the 
Lycurgan  uniformity  is  unmistakable.  Kultur, 
with  such  a  race,  cannot  but  signify  brute 
strength,  bending  science  and  all  mental  powers 
to  a  military  obedience,  commanding,  forbid- 
ding, intermeddling;  as  if  to  police  the  whole 
world  were  the  sum  of  political  wisdom. 

"How  long  a  time  lies  in  one  little  word!" 
Between  "police"  and  "policy"  there  is  a 
whole  period  of  development  in  social  ideas; 
but  the  Prussian  lags  behind.  He  has  not 
a  suspicion  of  the  march  that  with  infinite 
toil  the  race  of  man  has  accomplished,  feet 
bleeding,  tongue  parched,  but  temper  indomi- 


64        THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 

table,  from  serfdom  to  freedom.  And  herein 
becomes  manifest  the  deadly  sin  of  these 
Hohenzollerns.  They  scorned  to  learn  from 
the  English,  who  had  brought  their  king 
to  trial  and  execution.  But  could  they  not 
be  taught  by  Lessing  and  Goethe  the  rudi- 
mentary lesson  that  mind  is  the  creative,  be- 
cause the  most  original,  of  human  powers; 
and  that  in  this  way  without  physical  force  it 
will,  sooner  or  later,  control  every  force?  No, 
they  went,  they  are  going,  the  clean  contrary 
way.  Their  Kultur  is  not  "force  guided  by 
intelligence,"  but  "intelligence  submitting 
itself  to  force";  it  is  Sparta  magnified  to 
the  dimensions  of  a  vast  empire.  And,  like 
Sparta,  it  is  doomed  by  the  law  working 
within  it  to  fall. 

"Sparta,"  said  Robespierre,  haranguing  the 
Convention  which  he  executed  in  batches, 
"Sparta  is  a  flash  of  lightning  through  the 
darkness  of  antiquity."  His  faith  went  to  an 
absolute  system,  a  people  under  constrained 
vows,  an  ideal  that  shaped  with  an  axe  and 
reigned  by  the  sword's  edge.  He  justified  the 
Lacedgemonian  rigour  because  it  turned  out 
citizens  on  a  mould,  all  alike,  none  apart. 
The  thought  of  Lycurgus,  it  would  appear, 
was   military   by   design,   contemplating   the 


PRUSSIA'S  RISE  TO  '  KULTUR "  65 


State  as  an  engine  of  war  which  required  from 
its  men  and  women  not  any  skill  in  the  liberal 
arts,  nor  eloquence,  nor  self-culture  for  its  own 
sake,  but  the  narrow,  severe,  utterly  detached 
temperament  of  submission,  not  to  be  moved 
by  pity  or  love.  The  State  was  their  father 
and  mother,  its  command  their  sufficient 
warrant  for  cruel  deeds  done  in  cold  blood 
and  exactions  driving  the  conquered  cities 
they  held  to  despair.  Hence  Euripides  called 
them  the  most  hated  of  all  nations.  It  is  a 
passage  so  apt  to  my  reasoning  that  I  will 
venture  on  a  rude  paraphrase:  the  suffering 
Andromache  cries  out,  in  her  affliction,  against 
Spartan  Menelaus — 

"O  mortals  most  hate-worthy  unto  men. 
Dwellers  at  Sparta,  crooked  in  your  designs, 
Ye  kings  of  lies,  mechanics  of  all  ill, 
Twisting  and  turning,  nought  in  you  is  sound, 
Nor  in  your  thoughts ;  by  wrong  ye  thrive  in  Greece." 

An  Enghsh  commentator  remarks  of  Euripides 
that  "he  seemed  to  have  disliked  them  [the 
Spartans]  just  for  those  vices  which  to  every 
virtuous  man  are  pecuharly  odious;  because 
they  were  deceitful,  treacherous,  fond  of  gain, 
lax  in  their  public  morals,  unscrupulous  in 
their  political  relations."  But  once  more  it 
is  needful  to  insist  on  the  specific  difference 


66        THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 

between  vices  indulged  through  frailty  or  sud- 
den passion,  and  what  I  may  set  down  as  the 
heresy  of  justifying  crime  by  reasons  of  State. 
And  if  the  entire  policy  of  government  is 
carried  forward  on  such  principles,  what  shall 
we  say?  I  reply  that  any  government  so 
doing  is  profoundly  inhuman.  "Force  should 
be  right,"  then,  and  this  inversion  gives  us 
the  doctrine  of  "Kultur,"  in  Berlin  as  in 
Lacedffimon. 

Since  I  first  thought  of  this  little  book,  it 
has  come  upon  me  ever  more  strongly  that  in 
front  of  the  Prussian  trenches  we  are  attack- 
ing stands  Thomas  Carlyle.  INIodern  Prussia 
with  its  General  Staff,  its  nation  under 
arms,  its  bureaucracy,  its  Kaiser,  is  only 
Frederick  the  Great  multiplied  into  depart- 
ments, or  centred  and  reincarnate  in  his 
successor.  But  to  Carlyle,  though  not  with- 
out misgivings,  Frederick  was  "the  Hero  as 
King."  And  by  the  "Hero"  we  are  bidden 
to  understand  something  like  a  divine  appari- 
tion. In  three  pages  and  a  half  of  hard 
swearing  (Fi'ederick,  i.  143-6),  our  venerable 
Sage  of  Chelsea  denounces,  calling  it  "a 
doctrine  of  devils,"  the  opinion  widely  held 
by  onlookers  including  Voltaire,  that  the 
Hohenzollerns,   and   Frederick  in  particular. 


^  PRUSSIA'S  RISE  TO  "KULTUR "  67 

made  their  ascent  to  high  fortune  "in  the 
way  of  adroit  Machiavellism."  He,  the  not 
yet  extinct  volcano,  breaks  out  in  fire  and 
flame  over  a  book  of  uncertain  authorship, 
Les  Matinees  du  Roi  de  Prusse,  which  has 
the  audacity  to  put  upon  Frederick  himself 
the  confession  of  these  diabolical  principles. 
Well,  I  am  not  concerned  just  now  with  any 
nameless  author;  and  Frederick's  yea  or  nay 
would  leave  the  matter  exactly  where  he  found 
it.  The  work  in  question,  I  must  add,  is  said 
to  be  extant  in  Frederick's  own  writing;  it  was 
used  by  Von  Treitschke  for  his  biography  of 
the  king;  and  its  profanity,  wit,  and  shrewd- 
ness might  well  bear  the  royal  sign-manual. 

Carlyle,  volcanically  but  not  greatly  to  our 
enlightenment,  is  eager  to  persuade  us  that 
"adroit  Machiavellism"  never  prospers  in  God's 
world;  but  Prussia  has  prospered;  therefore 
Prussia  took  no  lessons  from  Machiavel.  To 
this  doubtless  well-meant  reasoning  the  answer 
of  historians,  who  need  not  be  "godless  dul- 
lards," is  "let  us  go  by  facts."  Let  us  in  other 
chapters,  I  say,  follow  "Kultur"  swiftly  down 
the  centuries  to  our  own  time,  from  Frederick 
the  Great  to  William  II. 


CHAPTER  IV 


The  Royal  Caste  and  Realism  in  Politics 

IN  writing  the  Life  of  Frederick  the  Great, 
Carlyle  used  or  consulted  some  two  thou- 
sand books,  great  and  small.  If  much  reading 
gave  soundness  of  judgment,  and  industry 
without  a  parallel  brought  light  corresponding, 
this  should  be  the  truest  biography  in  print 
since  printing  was.  And  yet  the  reverse,  in 
most  essential  points,  nay  in  the  moral  effect 
as  a  whole,  is  what  came  of  toil  so  prodigious. 
The  veteran  of  Cheyne  Row  did  not  explain 
to  Europe  the  phenomenon  we  call  Prussia; 
neither  will  his  summing  up  of  Frederick  as 
a  man  or  a  king  bear  the  criticism  of  simple 
good  sense.  It  is  a  melancholy  reflection. 
For  had  the  genius  of  the  writer  "blazed  up" 
round  his  subject  with  an  illumination  of  right 
principle,  instead  of  the  flame  and  smoke  due 
to  perverse  theory,  England  might  have  been 
warned  in  time  of  the  danger  that  now  threat- 
ens her  existence.  Dr  Sarolea  calls  the  Life  of 

68 


THE  ROYAL  CASTE  IN  POLITICS  69 


Frederick  mischievous.    It  is  too  little  to  say. 
Carlyle's  last  enterprise  was  a  national  disaster. 

I  remember  a  shrewd  critic  of  books,  the 
late  Mr.  Triibner,  observing  to  me,  "What 
has  Carlyle  added  to  our  knowledge  of  the 
times  of  Frederick  the  Great  except  his  own 
humours  and  eccentricities?"  One  of  our 
Ambassadors  at  Berlin — best  known  as  Lord 
Odo  Russell— would  have  replied,  "Well,  he 
has  written  the  wittiest  book  in  the  world." 
And  who  could  have  done  for  us  battle-pieces 
so  precise  yet  so  hmnanly  alive,  as  if  some 
mental  smokeless  powder  had  taken  the  place 
of  Horace  Vernet's  circus-like  performances 
on  canvas  at  Versailles?  No,  I  will  not  echo 
Mr.  Triibner's  hard  saying.  This,  however, 
remains  to  be  noted,  that  Carlyle,  so  far  as  I 
am  aware,  did  not  attempt  to  meet  the  definite 
charges  of  perfidy  brought  against  his  hero — 
a  perfidy  made  the  chief  hinge  of  policy  ( Welt- 
politik)  over  and  over  again  by  Frederick.  He 
is  content,  if  one  may  judge  by  his  silence,  that 
this  king's  murderous  ambition  should  have  set 
the  world  on  fire. 

INIacaulay,  who  represents  the  average  Eng- 
lishman's moral  sense,  has,  in  a  passage  to 
my  mind  unanswerable,  summed  up  the 
ethics  of  the  first  Silesian  war:     "The  whole 


70        THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 

world  sprang  to  arms.  On  the  head  of  Fred- 
erick is  all  the  blood  which  was  shed  in  a  war 
which  raged  during  many  years  and  in  every 
quarter  of  the  globe,  the  blood  of  the  column 
of  Fontenoy,  the  blood  of  the  mountaineers 
who  were  slaughtered  at  Culloden.  The  evils 
produced  by  his  wickedness  were  felt  in  lands 
where  the  name  of  Prussia  was  unknown ;  and 
in  order  that  he  might  rob  a  neighbour  whom 
he  had  promised  to  defend,  black  men  fought 
on  the  coast  of  Coromandel,  and  red  men 
scalped  each  other  by  the  Great  Lakes  of 
North  America." 

To  all  that  is  said  in  these  convincing  words 
a  dread  parallel  offers  itself  now  full  in  our 
sight.  For  Frederick  read  William,  and  the 
resemblance  in  act  as  in  diplomacy  starts  up 
complete.  Neither  is  it  a  chance  coincidence. 
Few  Englishmen,  and  I  suppose  hardly  any 
Englishwomen,  could  pass  an  examination  in 
the  merest  outlines  of  that  world-war  which 
centred  from  1740  to  1763  about  the  Austrian 
Succession.  They  know  even  less  of  the  "Great 
Elector"  Frederick  William,  whose  adroit  and 
unprincipled  turning  from  one  side  to  the 
other  a  century  before  that  war  made  Branden- 
burg "a  great  country,  or  already  on  the  way 
towards    greatness."      Carlyle    says    euphe- 


THE  ROYAL  CASTE  IN  POLITICS  71 


mistically  (an  odd  thing  to  have  to  say  about 
Carlyle)  that  "Friedrich  Wilhelm's  aim,  in 
this  as  in  other  emergencies,  was  sun-clear  to 
himself,  but  for  the  most  part  dim  to  every- 
body else.  He  had  to  walk  very  warily  .  .  . 
he  had  to  wear  semblances,  to  be  ready  with 
evasive  words,  and  advance  noiselessly  by 
many  circuits." 

And  thereby  at  the  Peace  of  Westphalia  he 
gained  one  half  of  Pomerania,  together  with 
what  statesmen  have  agreed  to  call  the  "secu- 
larised"— but  they  were  quite  plainly  the 
"stolen" — bishoprics  of  JSIagdeburg,  Halber- 
stadt,  and  Minden.  In  1656  he  fought  in  the 
battle  of  Warsaw  against  John  Casimir,  King 
of  Poland,  then  went  over  to  his  side,  being 
a  man,  says  Carlyle  once  more,  advancing  in 
circuits,  or  "spirally,  face  now  to  east,  now 
to  west,  with  his  own  reasonable  private  aim 
sun-clear  to  him  all  the  while."  At  any  rate, 
he  contrived  by  such  spiral  movements  to  get 
rid  of  the  homage  due,  as  we  saw  in  our  first 
chapter,  from  Prussia  to  the  Polish  crown.  At 
the  Peace  of  Oliva,  May  1660,  Ducal  Prussia 
began  thus  crookedly  its  upward  march  to 
greatness.  The  shifty  Elector  could  not 
keep,  though  he  won  by  fighting,  Swedish 
Pomerania.  Nor  was  he  permitted  by  Leopold 


72        THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 

of  Austria  to  annex  the  Silesian  Duchies,  a 
claim  to  which  he  put  forward  on  some  private 
family  arrangement  made  long  ago  with  the 
Dukes  of  Liegnitz.  And  this  peculiar  de- 
mand, based  on  "Heritage  Fraternity,"  brings 
me  to  another  cardinal  omission  in  Carlyle's 
ten  big  volumes,  which  goes  to  the  very  tap- 
root of  our  War  now  raging. 

I  write  out  for  you  here  in  legible  characters, 
dear  British  reader,  two  German  words,  beauti- 
ful to  behold,  Mitbelehmmg  and  Erhverhrild- 
erung;  the  first  of  which  signifies  that  two 
parties  stand  in  the  relation  of  holder  and  heir 
in  reversion,  should  the  original  line  fall  ex- 
tinct, to  a  dignity  in  fief;  and  the  second,  not 
unlike  the  first,  is  a  covenant  of  reciprocal  suc- 
cession on  failure  of  either  House.  These  were 
pacts  of  old  time,  but  later  they  were  not  recog- 
nised in  law  among  German  princes.  Thanks 
to  the  first,  however,  Prussia  fell  to  the  line  of 
the  Great  Elector ;  and  by  virtue  of  the  second 
he  laid  claim  to  the  Silesian  Duchies,  thus  open- 
ing a  pretext  for  the  War  of  1740,  which  in  due 
time  blossomed,  with  fruits  of  death,  into  the 
Seven  Years  War. 

The  point  I  am  driving  at  comes  now  in  view. 
Have  you  reflected,  good,  easy  Briton,  that 
these   "Pacts,"   "Co-infiefments,"   "Brothers- 


THE  ROYAL  CASTE  IN  POLITICS  73 

in-Arms-Covenants,"  were  all  made  without 
consulting  the  serfs  or  subjects  thus  handed 
about,  shovelled  to  and  fro  like  so  much  dead 
weight,  treated  in  short  as  stock  and  fix- 
tures, by  the  potentates  big  and  little  who  dis- 
posed of  them  absolutely?  This  Carlyle  de- 
scribes as  "the  right  to  dispose  of  said  Lands" 
— but  he  omits  the  unsaid  People  who  went 
along  with  the  Lands — "in  any  manner  of 
way";  and  he  quotes  the  legal  terms,  "by 
written  Testament,  or  by  verbal  on  their  death- 
bed, they  can,  as  they  see  wisest,  give  away, 
sell,  pawn,  dispose  of,  and  exchange  these  said 
lands  to  all  lengths,  and  with  all  manner  of 
freedom." 

Reflect  what  such  "freedom"  in  the  high 
contracting  parties  will  mean  for  the  other  par- 
ties, not  high  and  without  share  in  the  contract 
that  henceforth  determines  the  extent  of  their 
"life,  liberty,  and  pursuit  of  happiness."  The 
lands  in  question  were  not  private  estates  but 
lordships  carrying  with  them  more  or  less  of 
sovereignty,  and  as  a  inile  human  beings  were 
taken  into  the  bargain  without  chance  of  appeal 
from  it.  Those  long  rolling  words,  Mit- 
helehnung  and  Erhverhriiderung  mean  pre- 
cisely that  the  mass  of  the  German  Nation 
were  just  "property."  They  belonged  to  the 


74        THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 

reigning  House.  On  such  a  plea  was  it  that 
Frederick  II  claimed  Silesia;  for  such  an  end 
he  fought  or  caused  to  be  fought  some  eighteen 
pitched  battles,  laid  waste  large  tracts  of  the 
Fatherland,  brought  unspeakable  miseries  on 
his  own  dominions,  and  earned  the  title  of 
"Great." 

That  government  by  consent  of  the  governed 
is  the  only  true  conception  of  a  civilised  State 
never,  I  believe,  so  much  as  occurred  in  his 
most  benevolent  moods  to  a  prince  or  princeling 
of  the  genuine  German  stock.  Their  political 
scheme  was  always  tribal.  Their  sub j  ects  were 
their  family,  extended  to  all  who  dwelt  under 
their  rule.  Inheritance  and  exchange,  when 
bare  conquest — Faustrecht — had  done  its  work, 
determined  who  should  be  master  of  these 
serfs;  to  ask  their  consent  would  have  seemed 
not  unlike  taking  the  votes  of  a  flock  of  sheep 
before  choosing  their  butcher.  It  is  notorious 
that  the  German  princes  sold  their  troops, 
Hessians,  Saxons,  and  as  we  have  just  seen  in 
the  case  of  the  Great  Elector,  Prussians,  to 
the  highest  bidder.  Subjects  must  be  soldiers 
and  soldiers  were  food  for  cannon ;  but  whether 
they  stood  in  front  of  these  particular  guns  or 
behind  them  depended  on  the  price  their  owner 
got  for  hiring  his  men  out  to  kill  and  be  killed. 


THE  ROYAL  CASTE  IN  POLITICS  75 

Hence  the  German  military  service  appears 
to  have  been  always  brutal  on  the  officers'  part, 
cringing  and  doglike  on  the  part  of  the  rank 
and  file.  Unlimited  beating  was  their  portion 
of  the  family  rights.  Indignities  too  revolting 
for  mention  in  such  a  book  as  I  am  writing, 
outrages  on  our  common  humanity  in  the  per- 
sons of  these  wretched  slaves,  driven  by  them 
not  unfrequently  to  suicide,  have  marked  as 
with  bleeding  wounds  and  livid  weals  the  story 
of  German  militarism,  from  the  Thirty  Years 
War  down  to  the  campaigns  going  forward 
while  I  pen  these  lines.  It  is  a  record  of  shame 
and  horror  perhaps  unexampled  in  the  misery 
thus  inflicted  age  after  age,  and  with  appeal  to 
divine  right  for  its  warrant,  on  men  so  tamed, 
so  down,  that  they,  at  extremity,  would  kill 
themselves  to  escape  more  anguish,  but  never 
dream  of  bringing  their  tormentor  to  account 
with  a  rifle.  Such  training  in  moral  cowardice, 
the  very  heart  of  Prussian  Kultur,  has  been 
the  most  powerful  instrument — we  know  it  now 
- — ever  forged  against  the  world's  welfare.  It 
beats  out  of  its  unhappy  victim  all  conscience 
except  the  word  of  command. 

Yet  a  Eriton  like  our  really  "pitiful-hearted 
Titan"  Carlyle  was  bewitched  by  the  strong 
man  armed,  and  has  no  word  of  compassion 


76        THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 

for  his  victims,  though  ever  so  much  better 
informed  than  Thackeray  or  Macaulay  of  the 
frightful  lengths  to  which  that  tyranny  had 
gone  in  the  past.  We  have  now  to  add,  from 
the  day  when  Carlyle  ended  his  vast  mislead- 
ing apology  of  Frederick  II,  another  fifty-two 
years  to  the  indictment.  Unliappily,  Frederick 
is  not,  in  his  biographer's  sense,  "hitherto  the 
last  of  the  Kings."  How  much  of  our  present 
desolation  would  never  have  racked  our  minds 
and  torn  civilised  life  to  pieces,  had  he  proved 
so!  But  from  these  facts  we  can  draw  con- 
clusions not  dependent  on  Mornings  with  the 
King  of  Prussia,  nor  open  to  doubt. 

Aristotle,  we  read  in  our  earlier  pages,  would 
not  allow  that  a  State  is  merely  a  family  en- 
larged. And  of  governments  he  says,  "One  is 
adapted  to  the  nature  of  freemen,  the  other 
to  that  of  slaves."  Then  he  continues,  *'Do- 
mestic  government  is  a  monarchy,  for  that  is 
what  prevails  in  every  house;  but  a  political 
State  is  a  government  of  free  men  and  equals." 
The  German  Lord  of  War  calls  his  soldiers, 
*'Kinder,"  "you  children,"  as  belonging  to  his 
own  family;  he  treats  them  as  slaves.  No 
German  State  was  at  any  time  the  government 
of  free  men  and  equals.  Heine  bade  his 
audience  observe  that  German  princes  sat  on 


THE  ROYAL  CASTE  IN  POLITICS  77 


nearly  all  the  thrones  of  Europe,  and  that  they 
fought  or  conspired  everywhere  against  liberty. 
Professor  Haeckel  charges  England  with  guilt 
as  the  "destroyer  of  nations,"  who  has  brought 
on  this  tremendous  "Kultur-tragedy."  What 
can  be  his  drift,  unless  that  the  British  Consti- 
tution, known  more  and  more  as  enlightenment 
spreads,  provoking  other  peoples  to  claim  what 
it  offers,  is  threatening  the  reign  of  a  "family" 
—and  "herile"— despotism?  Haeckel  grants 
by  implication  that  the  Prussian- Austrian  so- 
called  war  of  defence  is  a  war  of  reaction.  The 
two  Kaisers  may  turn  out,  if  worsted  in  battle, 
to  be  the  last  of  the  Carlylean  kings ;  their  gov- 
ernment, "adapted  to  the  nature  of  slaves," 
may  become  an  extinct  form  of  political  evo- 
lution. It  is  high  time  indeed.  But  men  of 
science,  if  Germans,  are  preparing  to  mourn 
its  decease. 

Have  you  not  reflected  sometimes,  my  good 
reader — I  have,  often — on  the  wide  waste  of 
human  life  and  treasure  caused  by  Wars  of 
the  Roses,  Wars  of  the  Spanish  and  Austrian 
Succession,  Wars  of  Don  Carlos  and  Donna 
Isabella — all  for  what?  To  decide  which 
family,  or  which  one  of  a  family,  should  rule 
the  passive  people.  That  under  a  Republican 
form  of  government  these  apparently  insane 


78        THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 

contests  are  made  impossible  is,  of  course, 
obvious;  but  much  more  should  be  registered 
to  its  credit.  The  temper  out  of  which  they 
sprang,  with  its  blind  attachment  to  persons 
rather  than  principles,  its  disdain  of  the  com- 
mon good,  its  hatred  of  law  and  infatuated 
Legitimism,  carries  us  back  to  the  Tribe  at 
odds  with  itself  or,  as  we  now  say,  in  a  con- 
dition of  disintegrated  personality. 

I  grant,  on  the  other  side,  that  Wars  of  the 
Roses  may  be  real  struggles  of  parts  hot  yet 
thoroughly  fused,  of  Celt  and  Saxon,  for  in- 
stance; or  again,  of  conflicting  ideas,  as  be- 
tween the  old  and  the  new  regime  in  Spain. 
But  these  problems  are  aggravated  and  seldom 
rightly  solved,  when  thrown  into  the  shape  of 
dynastic  disputes.  The  Tudors  could  not  have 
ruled  absolutely,  nor  have  made  the  English 
change  their  religion,  perhaps,  at  all;  in  any 
case,  it  would  not  have  been  a  sordid  chapter 
in  the  Divorce  Court;  unless  the  great  houses 
had  been  ahiiost  extinguished  during  the  quar- 
rel of  the  White  and  Red  Roses. 

Consider  again  what  wars  have  arisen  out  of 
royal  marriages  and  the  claims  following  them. 
We  have  often  heard  the  Latin  tag  approved, 
"Tu,  felix  Austria,  nube."  Austria  was  to 
win  many  titles  and  millions  of  subjects  by 


THE  ROYAL  CASTE  IN  POLITICS  79 


repeated  wedlock.  This  name,  however,  did 
not  signify  the  Austrian  people  but  the  House 
of  Habsburg.  It  was  a  question  of  Archdukes 
and  Archduchesses;  the  chattels,  persons,  and 
communities  affected  were  the  dowry  that  went 
with  settlements.  I  possess  a  rare  and  splendid 
edition  of  Lucian's  works,  published  at  Am- 
sterdam by  Wetstein  in  1743,  which  was  dedi- 
cated to  Maria  Theresa,  Queen  of  Hungary, 
but  not  yet  Roman  Empress.  Her  titles  of 
honour  and  dominion,  I  find  on  counting  them, 
show  the  young  lady  to  have  been  in  that  year 
of  comparative  humility  five  times  a  Queen, 
fifteen  times  a  Duchess,  twice  a  Princess,  five 
times  a  Marchioness,  five  times  a  Countess, 
four  times  a  Lady,  once  over  certain  salt  mines 
— all  in  her  own  right;  and  by  marriage,  twice 
a  Duchess  and  once  a  Grand  Duchess;  in  all, 
thirty-nine  articles  or  items  of  rank  and 
style. 

Maria  Theresa  was  thus  expected  to  make 
laws  for  a  confused  medley  of  nations  from 
the  Slavonic  March  to  Flanders,  and  from  the 
Adriatic  to  the  North  Sea,  or  if  not  to  make 
yet  to  sign  them.  But  every  piece  on  the 
huge  chessboard  was  movable  at  the  discre- 
tion of  a  Minister  at  Vienna  such  as  her 
Prince  von  Kaunitz,  to  whom  the  people  were 


80        THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 

pawns  and  the  territories  farms  bringing  in 
revenues  for  his  various  wars,  prompted  by- 
reasons  of  State — in  plain  terms  by  intrigue 
and  personal  aims. 

History  is  made  up  of  dynastic  rivalries,  into 
which  the  welfare  of  the  nations  hacked  and 
hewn  to  support  them  did  not  directly  enter, 
while  it  was  sacrificed  on  the  altar  of  secret 
diplomacy.  These  Austrian  marriages  created 
not  so  much  an  empire  (and  never  have  they 
brought  forth  United  States),  but  rather  a 
menagerie  of  discordant  peoples  struggling  to 
be  free  of  one  another.  Czechs  and  Germans ; 
Hungarians  and  Croatians;  Slovenes,  Ital- 
ians, Ruthenes, — what  under  the  rule  of  Habs- 
burg  until  this  day  were  they  all  but 
oppressors  or  oppressed?  The  crown,  Im- 
perial or  Apostolic,  proved  itself  to  be  no  prin- 
ciple of  cohesion ;  at  best,  it  was  a  golden  chain. 
Austria  deserves  the  Homeric  epithet,  "man- 
devouring";  it  consumed  races  but  neither 
civilised  nor  attached  them.  Royal  German 
marriages,  producing  a  royal  caste,  or  at  any 
rate,  as  rude  journalism  lately  cries,  a  trade 
union  of  crowned  heads,  have  become  a 
peril  to  Europe.  We  all  know  it;  a  few  dare 
to  say  it ;  and  reticence  now  means  nothing  but 
polite  seeming. 


THE  ROYAL  CASTE  IN  POLITICS  81 


So  then:    "Tu,  felix  Austria,  nube,"  may  be 
taken  down  from  its  pride  of  place  and  flung 
by  the  herald  into  that  gloomy  vault  of  the 
Capuchins  where  the  Habsburgs  lie  dead  in 
state.    Henceforth,  we  had  better  speak  of  the 
Dowager  Lady  Austria,  to  whom  the  Allies 
may  vote  an  ample  widow's  jointure  with  be- 
coming weeds.    A  semi-divine  caste,  riddled  as 
are  so  many  Royal  Houses  by  the  penalties 
which  follow  upon  consanguineous  unions,  has 
been  sentenced  at  the  judgment-seat  of  com- 
mon sense,  of  history,  and  of  this  very  war. 
Moreover,  Washington,  if  not  Paris,  long  has 
been  showing  a  more  excellent  way.     Not  as 
though  we  need  hold  Republican  views  in  the 
abstract  because  we  have  come  so  far  from  the 
strange  illusions  of  Jacobite  and  Legitimist. 
In  the  spirit  of  Burke  himself,  who  lamented 
the  age  of  chivalry,  but  who  looked  on  politics 
and  government  as  a  practical  affair,  we  should 
esteem  royalty  in  a  given  case  by  the  benefits 
it  has  conferred  on  its   subjects,  or  by  the 
hindrance  to  freedom  and  progress  entailed 
in  keeping  it  up.     The  only  Divine  Right  of 
Kings,  as  of  superiors  generally,  is  the  right 
to  serve  those  well  over  whom  they  are  set. 
To  serve  thus  is  to  reign;  that  is  the  whole 
mystery  of  kingship. 


82        THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 

But  the  Royal  Caste,  thanks  to  its  idols 
and  idolators,  has  been  brought  up  in  the 
belief  that  it  exists  for  itself,  is  what  logicians 
call  "honum  in  se";  intrinsically  good  and 
necessary  to  European  civilisation.  These  are 
superstitions.  Wantonly  to  oust  a  family  from 
the  throne,  on  which  it  represents  the  historical 
permanence  of  a  nation,  would  be  as  great  a 
fault  as  to  hold  it  canonised  there  in  spite  of 
its  vices,  errors,  and  effective  disloyalty  to  the 
Commonwealth.  The  Romanoffs,  even  since  I 
began  my  present  volume,  have  been  weighed 
and  found  wanting.  The  Habsburgs  it  was, 
and  not  their  many  nations,  who  plunged 
Europe  into  this  frightful  adventure,  knowing 
how  little  they  owed  to  Prussia  which  was 
egging  them  on,  and  surely  less  discerning 
even  than  of  old  if  they  imagined  that  Berlin 
would  let  them  keep  the  chief  spoils  of  battle. 

And  what  shall  we  say  of  the  Hohenzollerns 
themselves?  They,  indeed,  won  by  wedlock 
and  family  ties,  by  Mitbelehnung  or  Erhver- 
hriiderung,  claims  to  expansion  which  the 
Great  Elector  and  the  Great  Frederick  might 
enforce  at  the  sword's  point.  Had  they  been 
in  quest  of  a  motto  corresponding  pretty 
nearly  with  Austria's  in  weight  and  metre, 
this  perhaps  would  have  served:     "Tu,  ferox 


THE  ROYAL  CASTE  IN  POLITICS  83 

Prussia,  caede,"  or  "Savage  Prussia,  strike 
hard."  That  they  did  strike  hard  and  get  their 
booty,  a  remarkable  passage  from  the  now  rare 
volume,  Letters  Concerning  the  Present  State 
of  Poland,  published  in  London,  1773,  will 
sufficiently  illustrate.  Elsew^here  I  have  des- 
cribed this  quotation  as  "a  retrospect  and  a 
prophecy."  Let  the  reader  judge.  The  author 
was,  it  appears,  a  Rev.  Mr.  Lindsey,  tutor  to 
the  nephew  of  King  Stanislaus  Poniatowski, 
and  he  wrote  on  the  morrow  of  the  First  Par- 
tition. In  Letter  IV,  p.  80,  these  very  signifi- 
cant words  may  be  found — 

"If  you  consider  with  attention  the  conduct 
of  the  House  of  Brandenburgh  from  the  time 
of  the  Margrave  Albert  to  this  hour,  by  what 
various  pretences  it  has  augmented  its  domains : 
first,  a  feudal  duchy  torn  from  Poland;  then 
that  duchy  erected  into  an  independent 
sovereignty;  then  new  territories  added  to 
it;  on  another  side,  the  duchy  of  Cleves, 
the  counties  of  Marck  and  Ravensberg,  the 
bishoprics  of  Minden  and  Camin,  together 
with  the  eastern  parts  of  Pomerania,  acquired 
by  the  Treaty  of  Westphalia;  the  better  half 
of  Swedish  Pomerania  acquired  afterwards; 
the  seizure  of  Silesia  by  the  present  King 
(Frederick  II)  ;  the  duchy  of  Prussia  erected 


84         THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 

into  a  kingdom;  that  kingdom  now  more  than 
doubled;  almost  all  the  rivers  which  empty 
into  the  Baltic  secured  to  him ; — you  must  allow 
that  this  house  has  pursued  a  plan  of  aggran- 
disement with  a  perseverance  and  success  that 
ought  to  engage  the  attention  of  every  State 
in  Europe." 

So  much,  certainly,  you  must  allow;  and 
more  also.  For  if  Austria  looks  like  a 
"ramshackle  Empire"  in  the  Liberal  eyes  of 
Mr.  Lloyd  George,  it  is  certain  that  Prussia 
— the  machine-made  and  otherwise  loose- 
jointed  confederacy  stretching  from  the 
Niemen  to  the  Rhine — is  a  State  hammered 
and  welded  into  an  Army  The  mad  father 
of  Frederick  the  Great  constructed  this  war- 
machine;  Frederick  set  it  in  motion,  and 
under  him  it  ground  its  enemies  to  powder  on 
the  right  hand  and  the  left.  Two  battles  won 
in  thirty  days;  Rossbach  over  the  French,  on 
November  5,  1757,  and  Leuthen  over  the 
Austrians  a  month  later,  on  December  5  of 
the  same  year,  proclaimed  to  East  and  West 
that  Prussia  had  become  a  Great  Power.  At 
Zorndorf,  August  26 — September  2,  1758,  the 
Russians  were  taught  by  a  fearful  expenditure 
of  life  and  the  agony  of  defeat  a  lesson  as 
convincing. 


THE  ROYAL  CASTE  IN  POLITICS  85 


These  three  combats  on  different  fronts  and 
all  victorious  may  be  said  to  have  fixed  in 
bronze  the  Prussian  idea  of  war,  and  with 
it  of  the  State.  It  did  not  resemble  the 
French,  for  France  had  a  long  and  triumphant 
record  of  glories  other  than  military.  It  was 
most  unlike  the  British,  at  that  time  more  than 
ever  opposed  to  standing  armies,  and  favour- 
ing private  adventure  as  the  simplest  way  to 
win  empires.  The  idea  of  Kultur  as  mechan- 
ism made  perfect  found  itself,  so  to  speak,  on 
those  bloodstained  fields  where  the  finest  armies 
of  Europe  went  down  before  its  onset.  Hence- 
forth HohenzoUern  was  the  War-Lord.  The 
dynasty  ruled  the  machine;  and  the  machine 
upheld  the  dynasty.  That  is  what  William  II 
has  thundered  out  in  his  proclamations;  he  is 
the  sword  of  the  Lord,  and  his  law  is 
God's  law.  "If  any  man  resists  me,"  said  this 
new  Tamburlaine,  "him  I  will  smash."  A  brief 
Evangel ! 

And  thus  we  perceive  what  comes  of  mistak- 
ng  the  State  for  a  family,  against  Aristotle  and 
reason.  It  did  away  with  all  hope  of  seeing 
Prussia  first,  and  Germany  afterwards,  develop 
into  the  "government  of  free  men  and  equals." 
For  since  this  "family"  had,  by  Divine  Right, 
a  ruler  who  was  responsible  to  God  alone,  its 


86        THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 

one  duty  was  obedience.  And  as  the  Prussian 
dominions  lay  geographically  open  to  attack 
on  all  sides,  every  war  which  the  King  resolved 
to  wage  might  be  called  a  war  of  self-defence. 
And  this  wide-scattered  realm  could  be  de- 
fended only  by  a  trained  army,  always  on  the 
alert.  There  was  no  way  more  direct  to  raise 
such  an  army  than  to  make  every  youth  a  po- 
tential soldier,  to  discipline  the  whole  nation 
by  the  sabre  and  the  cane,  to  revive  Sparta  in 
modern  form,  and  to  consider  peace  and  war 
as  episodes  in  a  general  policy  which  aimed  at 
aggression  and  meditated  conquest.  "Tu, 
ferox  Prussia,  caede." 

Frederick's  policy,  then,  which  has  been  that 
of  his  House,  cannot  be  absolved  (to  please 
Carlyle)  from  the  charge  of  Machiavellism. 
And  this  for  the  plain  reason  that  Machiavel 
reduces  politics  or  statecraft  to  a  pure  scheme 
of  forces  without  ethics,  which  forces  consist 
of  violence  and  cunning.  Carlyle  himself 
argued,  "What  is  a  Right  that  cannot  trans- 
late itself  into  a  Might?"  The  exceedingly 
immoral  deduction  that  "Might  is  Right"  lay 
close  at  hand.  But  Frederick,  let  it  be  owned, 
did  not  trouble  himself  in  any  enterprise,  from 
the  rape  of  Silesia  to  the  dismembering  of 
Poland,  about  abstract  Right  or  Wrong.    He 


THE  ROYAL  CASTE  IN  POLITICS  87 

played  with  statements  of  "rights"  in  a  diplo- 
matic sense;  he  could  finesse  and  dictate  notes 
for  the  bewigged  lawyers  of  the  Aulic  Coun- 
cil; his  real  argument  was  delivered  with 
amazing  accuracy  from  the  cannon's  mouth. 
As  Frederick,  so  Bismarck;  as  either  or  both. 
Kaiser  Wilhelm  the  Faithful.  He  is,  indeed, 
"der  Treue,"  true  to  type,  loyal  to  his  family 
tradition. 

We,  who  have  grown  up  on  a  system  of 
freedom,  private  and  public,  where  no  privi- 
leges by  divine  appointment  hinder  the  course 
of  law  and  justice,  but  all  say  their  say,  and 
the  nation's  verdict  is  final  in  matters  of 
State,  cannot  even  by  severe  exertion  imagine 
a  Superman — I  fear  the  hybrid  term  must  be 
allowed — whose  personal  caprices,  which  he 
is  pleased  to  label  heavenly  decisions,  shall  have 
the  force  of  law.  Yet  such  a  Superman  the 
Kaiser  sees  when  he  looks  at  himself  in  the 
glass.  It  is  bad  philosophy  and  historj'^  out 
of  date ;  it  is  the  mental  condition  well  known 
to  certain  doctors  as  la  folie  des  grandeurs; 
it  was  the  disease  of  the  Caligulas  and  the 
Neros;  an  excited,  feverish  possession  of  a 
brain  not  other  than  abnormal  by  an  idea, 
fixed  and  ever-pressing  on  it — which  reduces 
all  other  men  to  puppets,  and  sends  millions 


88         THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 

to  suffering  and  death  as  in  a  day-dream, 
touched  by  no  motive  except  colossal  and 
homicidal  vanity. 

Frederick  the  Great  died  in  1786,  three  years 
before  the  French  began  their  Revolution.  He 
had  no  suspicion  of  the  storm  which  was  com- 
ing up  from  the  West.  Neither  he  nor  any 
one  in  Europe  dreamt  of  a  pale  student — Cor- 
sican  by  birth  and  Italian,  or  even  Florentine, 
by  cast  of  intellect,  then  seventeen  years  old 
— who  would  eclipse  his  fame  and  drown  it 
in  oblivion  by  victories  far  more  widely  trum- 
peted than  Rossbach  or  Leuthen.  The  modern 
German,  however,  brings  these  two  soldier- 
chiefs  together  and  bows  down  before  them 
both. 

In  moments  of  exaltation  Kaiser  Wilhelm 
fancies  that  he  is  the  Great  Frederick,  whose 
portrait  he  keeps  ever  at  hand,  come  again 
in  mind  and  feature.  Napoleon  has  been 
seriously  claimed  by  others  than  Herr  H.  S. 
Chamberlain  as  a  Teuton  of  almost  pure 
breed,  on  the  evidence  of  his  fair  hair  and 
blue-grey  eyes.  To  the  Berlin  Valhalla  he 
must  belong,  since  he  bodies  forth  the  unmixed 
power  of  intellect,  obedient  to  a  will  that 
knew  no  bounds,  which  made  him  conqueror 
of  the  West.    Neither  Jena  with  its  ignominy 


THE  ROYAL  CASTE  IN  POLITICS  89 

nor  Waterloo,  which  the  Kaiser  has  resolved 
into  a  purely  Prussian  triumph,  can  check 
this  idolatrous  deification  of  a  hero  to  whom 
Deutschland  was  a  country  made  to  be 
plundered,  and  its  sons  a  horde  of  indifferent 
fighting  men. 

But  the  sum  of  these  things  is  Machiavelli's 
"little  masterpiece,"  The  Prince.  Carlyle 
thought  enough  and  too  much  had  been 
made  of  it,  as  though  his  entire  biography 
of  Frederick  were  not,  so  to  speak,  its  last 
illustrated  edition.  Caesar  Borgia,  "der  alte 
Fritz,"  Xapoleon,  may  well  adorn  its  gallery  of 
portraits.  The  Florentine  secretary  drew  his 
maxims  from  life;  and  these  later  slayers  of 
men  prove  them  once  more  to  be  available, 
— up  to  a  certain  point.  The  State,  on  that 
showing,  has  no  ethics  save  its  own  advantage. 
It  is  not  lawless,  for  the  Prince  is  its  law.  In 
current  scientific  language,  though  going  back 
to  our  English  philosopher  Hobbes,  there  is 
no  power,  no  principle,  no  interest  which  is 
entitled  to  challenge  the  supremacy,  or  can 
escape  the  jurisdiction,  of  the  civil  order, 
incarnate  now  in  an  Emperor  of  the  French 
and  now  in  a  German  Kaiser. 


CHAPTER  V 


From  Napoleon  to  Bismarck 

WE  seem  to  be  witnessing  the  attempted 
suicide  of  Europe.  After  ages  will 
refuse  credence  to  the  things  which  have  long 
been  filling  our  daily  news  with  monstrous 
tales  of  destruction,  laying  waste  Bel- 
gium, northern  France,  Serbia,  Rumania; 
while  Italy,  our  treasure-house,  trembles  at 
a  possible  descent  upon  its  fair  cities  by  bar- 
barians from  the  Stelvio  Pass,  and  Poland  is  a 
desert  soaked  in  blood,  desolate  under  famine. 
Whose  mind  was  it  that  projected  outwards 
;and  executed  these  designs  which  even  to 
contemplate  shake  us  with  preternatural  fear? 
How  did  we  tumble  headlong  into  chaos  ?  But 
yesterday  and  Britons  were  amusing  them- 
selves over  trivialities,  or  quarrelling  about 
suffrages,  or  thrown  out  of  gear  by  strikes 
on  railways,  in  coal  mines,  wherever  the  men 
chose.  Now  we  have  heard  ourselves  called, 
not  without  motive,  a  beleaguered  city;  the 

90 


NAPOLEON  TO  BISMARCK      91 


nation  is  an  army  or  a  military  forge;  the 
navy  stands  between  us  and  ruin. 

But  in  a  time  which  will  be  ever  memorable 
by  reason  of  its  peculiar  calamity,  when  civili- 
sation, like  Shakespeare's  "universal  wolf," 
was  trying  to  "eat  up  itself,"  we  have  one  com- 
fort. This  is,  in  my  view,  the  fifth  act  of  a 
world-tragedy,  where  many  knots  will  be  un- 
tied. Name  the  problem  "Democracy"  or 
"Feudahsm,"  or  yet  more  boldly,  "Religion," 
there  lies  the  question  put  by  Fate;  and  it  is 
for  us  to  create,  not  merely  to  find  out,  the 
answer,  as  in  our  own  lives  we  must  do  the 
like  or  die.  And  the  answer  is  already  show- 
ing, because  out  of  an  immense  confusion  the 
final  issues  have  emerged,  and  are  more  obvious 
to  sight  and  touch  than  they  have  ever  been 
before.  From  Frederick  through  Napoleon  to 
Washington — these  are  the  signs  on  the  high- 
road of  history.  Beyond  them  I  see  the  hills 
of  God. 

It  is  a  curious  reflection;  these  three  men 
lived  at  the  same  time,  overlapping  one 
another,  of  course,  but  leading  in  the  period 
which,  until  August  1914,  we  thought  our 
own.  Let  us  recall  the  dates :  Frederick,  1712- 
1786;  Napoleon  Bonaparte,  1769-1821;  and 
Washington,  1732-1799.     Behind  the  storms 


92        THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 

of  war  these  three  ride,  as  Choosers  of  the 
Slain.  For  the  world's  future  as  opening  now 
to  prophetic  eyes.  Napoleon  mediates  between 
the  Prussian  King  and  the  American  Presi- 
dent, though  himself  last  to  die;  since  ideals 
are  seen  or  dreamt  of  long  before  they  come 
to  be  perfect  in  time.  Europe  will  be  saved 
by  the  spirit  which  breathed  in  Washington, 
and  I  shall  have  great  things  to  say  concerning 
America.  It  was,  however.  Napoleon  who 
broke  the  old  order  on  this  side  of  the  Atlantic, 
abolished  the  Holy  Roman  Empire,  and  gave 
Prussia  free  scope  to  become  the  paramount 
power  in  Germany. 

Napoleon  was  the  "armed  soldier  of  the 
Revolution";  but  a  demonic  force  works  by 
action  and  reaction  all  round  its  starting  point ; 
and  the  man  who  created  a  Kingdom  of  Italy 
which  led  up  to  Italy  "One  and  Indivisible," 
was  the  same  whose  unjust  attack  on  the 
Venetian  Republic,  and  his  old-world  bargain- 
ing, brought  the  Austrians  to  encamp  in  St. 
^Mark's  Place  for  near  upon  seventy  years.  By 
his  repeated  blows  the  settlement  of  Germany 
effected  at  the  Peace  of  1648  was  shattered. 
His  own  crazy  kingdom  of  Westphalia,  with  his 
Rhenish  Confederation,  could  no  more  be  found 
after  Waterloo.    It  was  Napoleon  who  enabled 


NAPOLEON  TO  BISMARCK      93 

the  Prussians  to  set  up  their  "Watch  on  the 
Rhine."  For  he  pursued,  whether  knowing  it 
or  not,  the  policy  of  Richeheu  towards  Austria, 
despising  Brandenburg,  which  had  fallen  into 
a  helpless  condition  after  Frederick's  time. 
And  he  refused  obstinately  to  forbode  the  con- 
sequences should  his  vast  empire  not  hold  to- 
gether when  he  was  gone. 

Summing  up,  it  is  not  too  much  to  say  that 
Napoleon  left  as  a  possible  inheritance  to  some 
future  Hohenzollern  a  new  Germanic  Empire, 
and  the  hegemony  of  Europe.  By  reaction  he 
called  into  being  the  Holy  Alliance,  which  was 
nothing  but  autocracy  masquerading  as  re- 
ligion. For  he,  too,  was  an  autocrat,  self- 
made,  but  intent  on  foimding  a  dynasty,  like 
any  other  fortunate  adventurer  of  his  type.  He 
envied  Washington's  fame;  he  was  not  great 
enough  to  imitate  him.  Freedom  had  little  to 
expect  from  the  Napoleons,  as  events  proved. 
The  idea  of  Democracy  is  not  equality  of  servi- 
tude. On  the  whole,  Bonaparte  with  tireless 
vigour  centralised  government,  simplified 
methods,  mechanised  art  and  literature — all 
which  ends  in  Prussian  Kultur.  He  left  Ger- 
many as  a  house  swept  and  garnished,  ready 
for  the  spirit  more  wicked  than  himself  to  enter 
in  and  dwell  there. 


94        THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 

Historians  of  the  War  of  Liberation  in  1813 
have  seen  these  facts,  but  in  a  light  too  favour- 
able to  the  Hohenzollerns.  The  Tugendbundj 
or  League  of  Virtue,  the  German  uprising, 
Y/ith  Leipzig  and  Waterloo  victories,  appear  in 
Teuton  prose  and  verse  like  divine  wonders 
wrought  by  Stein,  Scharnhorst  and  the  other 
statesmen,  at  the  beck  and  call  of  their  Prus- 
sian master,  the  princes  of  the  Fatherland  join- 
ing in.  I  must  except  Heine.  "At  their  all- 
high  command,"  says  the  ironical  Jew,  "we 
Germans  rose  and  fought  for  freedom ;  always, 
you  know,  we  do  what  our  sovereigns  tell  us." 
To  drive  out  the  foreigner  was  to  free  Ger- 
many from  Naj^oleon  and  his  lieutenants;  but 
of  liberty  in  an  English  or  true  democratic 
sense,  not  a  word ! 

The  Austrian  Metternich,  also  named  Mit- 
ternacht — "the  Prince  of  Darkness" — reigned 
from  1815  to  1848.  A  man  of  infinite  charm, 
wit,  dexterity,  without  scruples  or  deep  con- 
victions, he,  if  any  one,  could  have  restored  the 
sceptre  to  the  Habsburgs,  by  which,  during 
well  nigh  six  centuries,  they  ruled  at  Frankfort 
over  the  wide  German  lands.  But  Napoleon 
had  passed  by;  the  resurrection  was  a  dream. 
While  Metternich  lasted  and  a  dilettante, 
Frederick  William  IV,  played  fantastic  tricks 


NAPOLEON  TO  BISMARCK      95 

on  the  throne  of  Prussia,  no  decision  of  the 
problems  agitating  Europe  could  be  hoped  for. 

Men  of  my  age  who  believe  in  the  demo- 
cratic movement,  feel  as  if  thirty  good  years 
had  been  wasted  before  the  curtain  drew  up 
again  which  had  fallen  amid  vehement  plaudits 
on  the  exile  at  St.  Helena.  The  history  of 
those  days  will  not  be  rehearsed  in  the  great 
books  of  the  future,  or  only  as  an  interregnum. 
With  Napoleon  III  and  Bismarck  the  drama 
carries  us  into  a  new  act — a  series  of  acts,  for 
the  play  is  like  a  Japanese  novel,  going  on 
endlessly.  Carlyle's  "last  of  the  kings"  had  a 
successor,  not  the  poor  commonplace  "William 
the  Great,"  whom  his  grandson  decorates  in 
vain  with  titles  at  which  posterity  will  smile, 
but  Otto  von  Bismarck,  Prussian  Premier,  des- 
tined to  be  Chancellor  of  the  German  Empire. 
Feudalism  had  discovered  its  most  powerful 
representative,  and  autocracy  delivered  itself 
into  his  hands. 

A  feudal  autocracy  sounds  like  a  contradic- 
tion in  terms.  Yet  in  the  Central  Empires  it 
is  a  fact.  We  may  translate  its  significance 
for  the  plan  of  this  book,  by  defining  it  as  the 
perpetual  alliance  of  absolute  king  and  heredi- 
tary nobles  against  the  rest  of  the  nation. 
The  "high   and  well-born"  unite  to  govern. 


96        THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 

exploit,  and  keep  in  their  place  those  who 
are  not  "born"  at  all.  It  is  the  "Almanach 
de  Gotha"  lording  it  over  finance,  professions, 
industry,  agriculture,  proletarians,  by  means  of 
Crown,  Court,  Law,  Army,  Navy — and  please 
note  the  capital  letters,  which  indicate  the 
power  that  controls  whatever  is  worth  having 
in  the  kingdom. 

I  do  not  pretend  to  an  expert  knowledge  of 
Prussian  history;  but  I  am  unable  to  put  my 
finger  on  any  episode  which  would  suggest  an 
alliance  of  king  and  people  to  curb  the  nobles. 
For  my  purpose,  therefore,  Kaiserdom  and 
Junkerdom  are  all  one.  Bismarck's  motto  in 
his  Reminiscences,  and  still  more  plainly  in  his 
acts,  was  "Ego  et  Rex  mens."  He  urged  the 
royal  person  forward  with  whip  and  spur; 
when  King  William  grew  restive  the  statesman 
threatened  to  dismount.  But  neither  steed 
nor  rider  had  the  least  inclination  to  turn  down 
the  Via  Nazionale.  Bismarck,  himself  a 
Junker,  held  unswervingly  by  the  ancien 
regime;  he  was  loyal  to  his  order  while  he  drove 
royalty  on. 

Thus  in  a  matter  of  prime  importance  the 
new  German  Empire,  when  it  came  to  be, 
differed,  greatly  to  its  immediate  advantage, 
from  the    French    Empire,    as    restored    by 


NAPOLEON  TO  BISMARCK     9T 


Napoleon  III.  France,  we  remember,  had 
abolished  its  feudal  noblesse  on  a  night  of 
frantic  enthusiasm,  August  the  Fourth,  1789. 
It  was  a  final  act.  Not  even  the  courage  of 
Napoleon,  though  a  self-crowned  modern  Char- 
lemagne, was  equal  to  reviving  an  institution 
which  democracy  regards  as  its  dearest  foe. 
The  conqueror  of  the  West  might  make  feudal 
chiefs  outside  France  of  his  marshals  and 
ministers;  but  his  attempts  at  Counts  and 
Barons  of  the  Empire  ended  in  names  without 
power.  Hence,  when  he  fell,  these  fell  at  the 
same  moment.  In  like  manner,  between 
France  and  the  possible  Republic  after  1852, 
there  stood  but  a  lonely,  somewhat  wavering 
figure ;  let  him  be  assassinated  or  taken  prisoner 
and  the  Imperial  phantom  would  vanish,  as  in 
the  event  it  did. 

But  Prussia,  nay  Germany  at  large,  resem- 
bles the  France  which  existed  before  Richelieu 
tamed  the  Nobles  and  Louis  XIV  kept  them 
as  lackeys  in  his  Court  at  Versailles.  The 
feudal  system  lives  on  across  the  Rhine;  it 
adds  to  the  Monarchy  strength  and  resources; 
it  is  a  permanent  General  Staff,  always  in 
office,  let  what  will  happen.  How  decisively 
it  can  intervene  to  save  or  to  extend  its  own 
privileges  we  have  often  witnessed,  and  shall 


98        THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 

again  before  the  denouement  of  this  War  plot 
is  reached.  Here,  certainly,  is  the  fiercest  of 
entanglements,  much  concerning  us  who  never 
thought  to  be  troubled  by  Prussian  Junkers. 
The  cry  goes  now,  ''Eliminate  the  Hohenzol- 
lerns."  Not  an  unjust  or  unwise  policy,  and 
kind  above  measure  to  the  German  people. 
Nevertheless,  we  are  not  adjudicating  on  Na- 
poleon III  after  Sedan,  a  general  without  an 
army,  a  king  without  nobles,  a  parvenu  with- 
out a  pedigree.  He  had  no  roots  and  withered 
away;  his  dynastj^  was  planted  in  the  sand. 
When  William  II  prattles  about  Divine  Right 
he  is  appealing,  in  fact,  to  the  history  of  which 
he  bears  the  burden  and  claims  the  renown. 
And  so  these  high-flying  German  birds  of 
prey;  they  have  been  long  at  this  game.  Of 
old  they  made  their  nest  in  the  cedars ;  to  pull 
it  down  would  be  revolution.  Kaiser  and 
Junkers  stand  or  fall  together.  To  eliminate 
the  Hohenzollerns  a  German  "Fourth  of 
August"  will  be  indispensable. 

If  allegations  like  the  foregoing  could  be 
overthrown,  who  would  rejoice  more  than  I 
that  make  them?  But  I  fear  they  are  terribly 
well  founded.  And  the  inferences  from  them 
are  formidable.  Were  we  fighting  theory  with 
theory,   or  institutions   with   institutions,   the 


NAPOLEON  TO  BISMARCK      99 

conflict  would  be  hard  enough.  But  the 
Western  nations,  including  now  the  United 
States,  have  in  front  of  them  a  War-machine, 
the  most  heavily  mounted  hitherto  known, 
and  it  is  driven  by  a  living  force — I  do  not 
say  an  intelligence,  but  something  more  primi- 
tive— a  tradition  bred  and  born  in  the  very 
nature  of  the  men  hurling  their  strength  into 
battle.  Living  history  so  equipped  has  reserves 
within  it  of  obstinacy,  has  fervours  and  enthu- 
siasms, with  old  associations  to  kindle  them 
afresh.  The  Hohenzollern  legend,  medieval — 
modern,  will  afford  to  Prussians  at  bay  senti- 
ment as  powerful  as  the  Stuart  legend  did  to 
Jacobite  Highlanders.  And  *'old  Fritz"  may 
serve — like  "le  petit  caporal"  to  France — to 
give  Germany  an  object  of  personal  devotion. 
Indeed,  since  Rossbach  this  Frenchified  Vol- 
tairian, though  he  could  not  follow  a  German 
translation  of  Racine,  has  been  forcibly  taken 
to  fill  the  part  of  Arminius,  the  devourer  of 
Roman  legions.  But  neither  Frederick  r.or  any 
of  his  successors,  not  even  William  II,  ever 
did  consider  Germany  except  in  the  light  of 
a  larger  domain  and  fee-farm  of  Prussia. 
Never  one  of  them  was  a  true  German  patriot. 
In  war  they  have  sacrificed  Bavarians  and 
Saxons   without  mercy,   while   spai'ing   their 


100      THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 

Pomeranians.  Frederick  laid  Saxony  waste, 
not  less  unconcerned  at  its  desolation  than 
William  was  over  the  ruin  of  Belgium,  which 
*'made  his  heart  bleed"  every  hour  he  was  in- 
sisting on  it.  I  will  quote  Macaulay  rather  than 
Carlyle  to  show  the  character  of  a  Prussian 
invader. 

''This  battle  (Lobositz)  decided  the  fate  of 
Saxony.  Augustus  and  his  favourite  Briihl 
fled  to  Poland.  The  whole  army  of  the  elec- 
torate capitulated.  From  that  time  till  the 
end  of  the  war  Frederick  treated  Saxony  as 
a  part  of  his  dominions,  or  rather  he  acted 
towards  the  Saxons  in  a  manner  which  may 
serve  to  illustrate  the  whole  meaning  of  that 
tremendous  sentence,  'Subjectos  tanquam  suos, 
viles  tamquam  alienos.'  Saxony  was  as  much 
in  his  power  as  Brandenburg;  and  he  had  no 
such  interest  in  the  welfare  of  Saxony  as  he 
had  in  the  welfare  of  Brandenburg.  He  ac- 
cordingly levied  troops  and  exacted  contribu- 
tions throughout  the  enslaved  province,  with 
far  more  rigour  than  in  any  part  of  his  own 
dominions.  Seventeen  thousand  men  who  had 
been  in  the  camp  at  Pirna  were  half  com- 
pelled, half  persuaded  to  enlist  under  their 
conqueror." 

Now   in   the   eighteenth   century   for   one 


NAPOLEON  TO  BISMARCK     101 


Teuton  prince  to  spoil  and  waste  the  lands  of 
another  was  by  no  means  looked  upon  as  trea- 
son to  Germany.  The  Fatherland,  split  up 
into  family  estates  beyond  counting,  had  lost 
whatever  sense  of  unity  it  ever  possessed;  and, 
truly,  that  was  not  much.  Feudalism  divides 
almost  as  the  clan-system  divides,  or  at  any 
rate  hinders  the  people  who  should  be  a  single 
nation  from  combining  into  a  whole.  It  was 
first  by  the  war  with  Napoleon  in  1813,  then 
and  far  more  by  emigration,  especially  to 
America,  and  at  last  by  the  constraining  force 
of  a  victorious  German  Empire,  that  a  certain 
feehng  of  the  patria,  the  common  country, 
began  to  be  developed.  Readers  of  Auerbach's 
Village  Stories  will  have  noted  this  gradual 
change,  by  which  a  Saxon,  Rhinelander,  Sua- 
bian,  or  Hessian,  found  himself  first  of  all  to 
be  a  German,  because  the  Yankee  or  the  Briton 
called  him  so.  In  Chicago,  nay  in  Milwaukee, 
"Deutschland  liber  Alles"  prevailed.  Pressure 
from  Berlin  has  increased  the  weight  of  this 
Germanism;  and  we  hear  of  little  else  during 
the  War,  which  is  described  by  every  organ  of 
publication  within  the  Reich  as  an  assault  on 
the  nation. 

Nevertheless,  a  sentiment  late  and  manu- 
factured is  not  likely  to  survive  the  strain  of 


102       THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 

defeat.  Under  all  circumstances,  it  remains 
true  that  Prussia  is  not  Germany,  and  con- 
versely, that  Germany  is  not  Prussia.  In  spite 
of  D ohm's  aphorism,  it  is  not  true  that  "the 
interests  of  Brandenburg  and  Deutschland  will 
never  be  opposed."  When  Dr.  Wilson  drew 
his  calm  but  crushing  indictment  of  the  auto- 
cracy at  Berlin,  he  distinguished  between  the 
German  people  and  their  rulers,  saying  that 
America  had  no  quarrel  with  the  nation  itself. 
From  the  ethical  point  of  view  it  is  a  distinc- 
tion that  requires,  and  I  hope  will  repay,  deli- 
cate handling.  The  distinction  which  I  have 
indicated  above  is  undoubtedly  real. 

I  know  Munich  these  many  years;  I  cannot 
sufficiently  emphasise  the  hatred,  not  free  from 
contempt,  with  which  Bavarians,  high  and  low, 
pronounced  in  my  hearing  the  name  of  Prussia. 
To  fancy  that  the  Catholics  along  the  Rhine 
wish  to  be  governed  from  Berlin  is  to  forget 
many  episodes  of  the  quarrel  between  Church 
and  State  since  1815.  When  the  Allies  under- 
take, with  Dr.  Wilson,  to  eliminate  the  Hohen- 
zollerns,  here  are  conditions  which  they  will 
do  well  to  bear  in  mind.  As  I  set  them  down 
a  gleam  of  hope  shoots  across  the  sky. 

These  counsels  are  for  to-morrow.  We  must 
now  look  back  on  the  events  of  yesterday  and 


NAPOLEON  TO  BISMARCK    103 


the  day  before,  thanks  to  which  Britain  first 
and  America  finally  have  taken  up  arms  against 
the  House  of  Hohenzollern  in  defense  of  their 
democratic  ideals.  The  fortunes  of  this  feudal 
autocracy  have  revealed  another  and  a  contrary 
spirit,  from  its  rise  under  the  "Margrave 
Albert" ;  and  at  every  stage  its  qualities  appear 
the  same,  while  ambition  grows  with  oppor- 
tunity. The  duchy  becomes  a  kingdom,  the 
kingdom  an  empire;  the  empire  lays  down  a 
scheme  of  Weltpolitih  by  which  it  is  to  gain 
universal  dominion,  so  that  no  question  shall 
be  decided  from  China  to  Peru  without  the 
Kaiser's  fiat. 

In  1815  Prussia's  tentacles,  already  enclos- 
ing more  of  Poland  than  it  has  been  possible  to 
digest  comfortably,  stretched  themselves  to  the 
Middle  Rhine,  Austria  having  given  up 
Flanders,  and  no  Great  Power  saying  nay. 
The  Church  electorates  of  IMayence,  Cologne, 
and  Treves  were  torn  out  of  sanctuary.  A 
rich  Catholic  domain  fell  to  the  Lutheran 
State.  On  the  Rhine  and  the  Vistula  one 
ruler  gave  laws  to  subjects  who  were  by  faith 
and  culture  aliens  to  him.  The  troubles  which 
succeeded  in  Rhineland  are  matter  of  history. 
How  the  Poles  suffered,  but  could  not  be 
overcome,   in  Posnania  may  be  learnt  from 


104       THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 

Bismarck  and  Von  Biilow,  men  that  have  done 
their  utmost  to  blot  out  a  nation  and  glory  in 
their  shame. 

Now  the  kingdom  of  which  Brandenburg 
was  the  centre  remained  as  it  came  out  from 
the  Congress  of  Vienna,  with  one  small  excep- 
tion, until  its  victories  over  Austria  in  1866 
gave  North  Germany  into  its  grasp.  But  this 
long  interval  of  comparative  decadence  pre- 
sents features  that  we  cannot  silently  pass  over. 
It  will  be  memorable  for  the  rise  and  fall  of 
Liberalism  in  Germany;  the  futile  Frankfort 
Parliament,  with  its  dream  of  a  democratic  em- 
pire; the  first  distinct  conception  of  a  great 
German  naval  power,  to  be  got  by  annexing 
Schleswig-Holstein ;  and  the  entrance  of  Bis- 
marck on  the  scene.  Every  circumstance  that  I 
have  recorded  here  took  the  nations  one  step 
further  on  the  path  of  the  world-war.  In 
retrospect  the  chain  seems  adamantine,  and 
each  event  is  part  of  the  logic  of  facts.  Never- 
theless, had  Britain  chosen  well  and  France 
been  wiser,  we  can  see  that  a  different  line  of 
action  lay  within  the  bounds  of  possibility. 

But,  on  the  whole,  Britain  with  her  Palmer- 
stons  and  Russells,  her  Aberdeens  and  Glad- 
stones, her  highly  regarded  Prince  Consort  and 
his  confidential  adviser.  Baron  Stockmar,  had 


NAPOLEON  TO  BISMARCK    105 

no  definite  policy  in  foreign  affairs.  To  quote 
a  hackneyed  phrase  once  more,  but  I  think 
appositely,  she  was  always  "drifting."  And 
France,  heroic  France,  hoodwinked  by  Louis 
Philippe,  betrayed  by  Louis  Napoleon  during 
the  night  of  December  2,  1851,  submitted  to 
her  new  Bonaparte  while  stabbing  him  with 
epigrams,  and  sank  into  lethargic  prosperity. 
]Meantime,  the  days  of  Frankfort  came  and 
went,  with  a  man  to  match  and  overmatch 
Napoleon  III  issuing  out  of  them. 

"The  days  of  Frankfort,"  I  said.  These 
were  of  two  periods:  the  one  from  March  1848 
till  June  18,  1849,  which  covers  the  Liberal 
enterprise  and  ends  in  fiasco;  the  other  of  the 
restored  Diet,  where  Bismarck  represented 
his  sovereign  from  1851  until  1858.  The 
point  now  in  my  aim  is  to  bring  out  the 
analogy  and  the  contrast  between  Germany's 
effort  to  win  constitutional  freedom  and 
the  English  parliamentary  struggle  against 
Charles  I.  How  directly  all  this  bears  on  our 
actual  situation  no  one  with  an  eye  for  history 
can  mistake.  I  am  not  merely  drawing  a 
parallel;  it  would  be  much  more  accurate  to 
affirm  that  I  am  describing  the  "nodes" 
of  a  great  movement  in  the  human  orbit,  as 
the  world  speeds  on  to  its  goal  afar  off.    Had 


106      THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 


the  earlier  days  of  Frankfort  fulfilled  the  anti- 
cipations they  awakened  among  Germans,  no 
Bismarckian  era  would  have  come  to  pass. 
And  it  was  in  the  latter  days,  from  1851  till 
1858,  that  the  ideas  of  the  future  Chancellor 
ripened  to  their  definite  form.  English  states- 
men did  not  pay  great  heed  to  Frankfort, 
early  or  late.  There,  however,  was  shapen 
the  problem  upon  which  we  are  now  staking 
our  all. 

In  February  1848,  France,  taking  fire  from 
Aetnean  Sicily,  set  the  Continent  ablaze  by 
thrusting  Louis  Philippe  with  shame  out  of  the 
Tuileries.  A  most  exact  picture  of  the  tragi- 
comedy is  given  by  Flaubert  in  UEducation 
Sentiment  ale.  Bad  kings,  when  they  are  de- 
posed, come  to  London;  and  the  man  whom 
his  contemporaries  called  Ulysses  the  traveller 
took  one  last  journey  as  Mr.  Smith  across 
the  English  Channel.  The  "y^^r  of  revolu- 
tions" set  in.  For  months  it  seemed  as  if  every 
sovereign  except  our  own  would  be  chased 
from  his  capital  and  every  country  would  re- 
ceive a  constitution.  Prince  Metternich,  who 
had  been  more  than  a  king,  sought  refuge 
in  London  too.  Palermo,  Naples,  Pied- 
mont, had  led  the  dance.  In  Hungary, 
Bohemia,  Prussia,  Lombardy,  the  people  car- 


NAPOLEON  TO  BISMARCK    107 


ried  all  before  them.  There  was  a  rising  in 
Berlin;  and  Frederick  William  IV,  dilettante 
and  mystic,  already  half  insane,  surrendered  to 
its  force.  Adorned  in  the  colours  "schwartz- 
roth-gold,"  which  this  movement  put  on,  the 
Hohenzollern  drove  through  his  capital  and 
echoed  the  street  cry  of  the  "Glorious  German 
Revolution."  Heine,  long  years  previously, 
declared  that  whenever  such  a  crisis  broke 
out  its  rage  would  excel  that  of  the  terrible 
Attila-contest  in  the  Nibelungenlied.  For  a 
while  the  prophecy  had  a  beginning  of  fulfil- 
ment. Austria  collapsed;  Italy  sprang  to 
arms;  the  old  German  Diet  disappeared; 
and  a  Parliament  democratic  in  tone  and 
temper  met  at  Frankfort  on  May  18,  184)8, 
representing  "United  Germany." 

But  neither  by  arms  nor  by  debate  was 
victory  destined  to  gratify  the  Liberals. 
North  and  south  of  the  Alps,  over  the  whole 
Austrian  Monarchy  and  in  the  Fatherland, 
the  Reaction  brought  up  its  troops  and 
trampled  the  efforts  of  freedom  into  blood- 
stained mire.  What  is  yet  more  astonishing, 
the  so-called  German  democrats  in  Frankfort 
applauded  when  Radetzky  and  the  Tsar,  and 
all  that  royal  caste,  beat  the  Revolution  to  its 
knees.     Forsooth,  the  Gemian  name  was  at^ 


108       THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 

stake  should  Italians  defeat  Austrians,  and  no 
liberty  could  be  worth  such  a  price.  The 
Frankfort  gathering  fell  easily  under  the  spell 
of  pedants,  constitution-mongers,  and  very 
bad  copies  of  those  fanatics  who  lorded  it 
over  the  French  Convention.  After  floods 
of  heavy  rhetoric,  a  scheme  which  excluded 
Austria  got  itself  framed.  There  should  be 
a  new  German  Empire,  one  and  democratic, 
with  a  Prussian  Emperor  for  its  chief. 

On  April  21,  1849,  the  Imperial  diadem  was 
offered  to  Frederick  William  IV.  He  refused 
it  in  unseemly  terms;  he  would  not  "pick  up 
a  crown  out  of  the  gutter."  Not  democracy 
but  the  German-Christian  monarchy,  founded 
on  Divine  Right,  was  capable  of  satisfying  the 
demands  of  justice.  This  peremptory  refusal, 
coupled  with  victories  all  round  about  of  the 
Holy  Alliance  thus  renewed,  took  the  life 
out  of  the  Frankfort  assembly.  It  became 
a  caricature  of  the  English  Long  Parliament 
reduced  to  a  debating  society;  and  on  June  18, 
1849,  the  anniversary  of  Waterloo,  some  stal- 
warts who  still  held  on  and  had  translated  it 
to  Stuttgart  were  thrown  into  the  street  by 
the  police  of  Wiirttemberg. 

"Flebile  ludibrium,"  observes  Tacitus. 
This  shameful  end  of  German  strivings  after 


NAPOLEON  TO  BISMARCK    109 

unity  and  liberty  was  indeed  ridiculous;  but, 
in  the  light  of  what  has  happened  since,  it 
might  well  move  us  to  grief.  It  boded  ill 
for  Europe  and  ourselves.  The  mischief 
wrought  by  failure  of  a  genuine  though 
unwisely  managed  attempt  to  bring  about 
the  German  revolution  by  due  course  of 
law,  never  from  that  day  could  be  healed. 
It  went  on  increasing  and  multiplying  until 
it  has  wrapt  the  world  in  its  plague- 
stricken  folds. 

One  thing  came  out  clear  beyond  question. 
The  German,  who  is  often  an  able  if  uncouth 
administrator,  and  who  delights  in  small  in- 
trigues, has  no  genius  for  politics  where  persua- 
sion, mutual  forbearance  and  intelligence,  fair 
play  and  practical  good  sense,  are  concerned. 
His  temper  soon  gives  way,  and  he  is  most 
ungenerous.  He  thinks  and  argues  in  terms  of 
brute  force.  He  is  persistent  but  provocative. 
He  assumes  that  his  adversary,  being  his  in- 
ferior, can  be  led  astray  by  devices  transparent 
to  a  child ;  and  he  invents  many  of  them.  His 
incurable  suspicion,  intense  yet  wayward,  has 
made  the  German  critic  whether  of  life  or 
literary  problems  most  unsure.  His  tendency 
has  ever  been  to  impute  base  motives ;  and  per- 
haps no  mind  in  Europe  is  so  capable  of  making 


110      THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 


great  things  look  small  as  the  thoroughbred 
Teuton.  Lacking  the  sense  of  proportion  he 
lays  stress  on  trifles;  he  quarrels  all  day  long; 
and  he  is  very  slow  to  forgive. 

I  am  painting  him  just  now  in  sombre 
colours  because  they  affect  his  dealings  with 
opponents  in  politics  even  more  than  in  the 
schools;  but  he  seems  everywhere  in  public 
life  to  take  his  stand  on  the  fencing-floor — ' 
auf  der  Mensur.  These  are  not  the  qualifica- ' 
tions  of  a  wise  legislator ;  they  account  for  the 
infinite  factions  of  the  Frankfort  Parliament 
and  its  successor  the  Reichstag.  They  explain 
why  German  democracy  has  been  either  a 
pretence  or  a  failure. 

One  other  cause  of  it  may  detain  us  for  a 
moment.  Frederick  William  IV  put  aside 
the  Imperial  crown  offered  him,  on  this  plea 
among  the  rest,  that  he  needed  the  approval 
of  the  Free  Cities,  which  was  not  given. 
German  Liberals  had  not  a  single  German 
city,  in  the  legal  sense,  at  their  back;  most 
unlike  in  this  to  our  Long  Parliament  which 
could  always  rely  on  London;  for  London, 
in  Milton's  superb  phrase,  was  "the  mansion 
house  of  liberty."  The  so-termed  Free  Cities 
were  close  corporations,  unreformed  and  irre- 
formable.     They  wanted  no  democratic  con- 


NAPOLEON  TO  BISMARCK    111 

stitution  to  break  down  their  "freedoms"  in 
favour  of  a  proletarian  horde.  Thus  Reaction 
held  its  own  or  soon  recovered  it.  The 
Liberals  were  cowed  into  silence.  Racial 
jealousies,  senile  armies,  incapacity  for  po- 
litical discussions  and  designs,  brought  the 
German  Revolution  to  an  inglorious  end. 
Austria  got  back  her  States  and  came  to  an 
understanding  with  Prussia.  The  convention 
of  Olmiitz,  November  20,  1850,  set  up  again 
the  German  Bund  of  1815.  And  Bismarck  in 
1851  began  the  second  period  of  the  days  at 
Frankfort. 


CHAPTER  VI 


Reaction  finds  its  Captain-General 

IN  the  year  1862  the  makeshift  European 
status  quo  dating  from  the  Congress  of 
Vienna  was  not  only  doomed  but  expiring. 
Democracy  outside  England  had  failed,  but 
could  it  be  pronounced  dead?  Autocracy,  it 
is  true,  had  sent  the  Parliament  of  Frankfort 
packing;  yet  a  Third  Napoleon  (who,  as  witty 
Frenchmen  declared,  was  not  even  a  second) 
had  been  frightened  by  Orsini  bombs  into 
making  war  for  an  idea — for  "Italy  free  from 
the  Alps  to  the  Adriatic";  had  half -beaten 
the  Austrians  in  Lombardy;  then  recoiling 
before  his  own  fears,  not  without  help  from 
Prussian  armaments  on  the  Rhine,  had  left 
Venice  under  the  hated  yoke.  Sardinia  was 
grown  in  1861  to  be  the  Italian  Kingdom; 
and  Garibaldi's  romantic  adventure  had  given 
the  Two  Sicilies — does  any  one  remember  that 
name  now? — to  Victor  Emmanuel. 

Strange,  perplexed  results  were  springing 
out  of  an  extraordinary,  an  unstable  condition. 

112 


REACTION  113 


In  all  things  the  faded  replica  of  Napoleon  at 
Paris  was  for  half-measures.  Louis  Napoleon 
wanted  neither  peace  nor  war,  but  a  juste 
milieu  favourable  to  his  dynasty.  Half-despot, 
half -democrat,  he  seemed  outwardly  imposing, 
while  the  real  heaven-storming  Titan  took  up 
the  seals  of  government  at  Berlin.  For  eight 
years  the  duel  of  minds  went  on,  but  became 
ever  less  equal.  Western  Europe,  unlucky 
in  this,  and  to  be  more  unlucky  still,  had 
entrusted  its  future  to  a  dull  neurotic  subject, 
a  pain-racked  charlatan,  whose  very  knowledge 
of  the  German  language  and  character  led 
him  astray.  England  had  no  guide  at  all. 
The  Prince  Consort  w^as  dead,  the  Queen 
lived  in  retirement,  but  she  wrote  to  King 
Leopold  in  passionate  words  of  "My  irrevo- 
cable decision  that  his  views  about  everything 
are  to  be  my  law." 

I  am  old  enough  to  recall  the  year  1862, 
as  well  as  the  speculations  excited  by  Count 
Bismarck's  resistance  to  the  Prussian  House 
of  Representatives.  Few  in  this  country  were 
familiar  with  his  name  or  the  matter  in  dis- 
pute. Fewer  still  knew  anything  of  the 
constitution  under  which  the  States  of  the 
HohenzoUerns  were  governed.  We  heard  of 
an  absolute  King,  a  Parliament  opposed  to 


114       THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 

him,  and  a  Prime  Minister  who  might  be 
impeached.  The  resemblance  to  Charles  I, 
the  House  of  Commons  in  1641,  and  the 
Earl  of  Strafford,  was  alluring.  In  fact,  there 
existed  the  kind  of  analogy  which  arises  from 
a  problem  capable  of  being  solved  in  either 
way,  according  as  the  forces  are  employed. 
Had  Prussian  Liberals — for  again  there  was 
a  Liberal  movement  on  foot,  with  a  majority 
in  the  Lower  House — had  these  men,  I  say, 
been  able  to  reckon  upon  Berlin,  as  the 
English  Commons  on  London,  it  is  possible 
that  Strafford's  fate  might  have  overtaken 
Bismarck. 

The  contrary  happened.  This  "bold  bad 
man" — the  Shakespearean  adjectives  fit  him — 
was  of  Wentworth's  school;  but  he  had  an 
easier  task — not  to  make  his  king  absolute  but 
to  keep  him  so.  For  Charles  in  England 
usurped  powers  not  belonging  to  the  Crown; 
whereas  in  Prussia  the  constitution  left  the 
royal  authority  an  overlordship  the  bounds  of 
which  had  never  been  set,  nor  could  be.  On 
paper  the  House  of  Representatives  in  Prussia 
held  control  of  the  purse,  and  could  vote  bud- 
gets or  reject  them.  How  if  it  did  reject  them? 
Would  a  deadlock  ensue?  or  the  king  be 
driven,  as  the  Stuart  was,  upon  illegal  forced 


REACTION  115 


benevolences?  The  law,  replied  Bismarck, 
was  silent;  and  silence  let  prerogative  in  by 
this  postern-gate. 

The  new  Strafford  outwitted  the  Commons. 
Twice  a  Liberal  majority  was  returned,  the 
second  larger  than  the  first.  Twice  it  threw  out 
the  military  estimates ;  for  on  the  principles  of 
Liberalism  a  standing  army  was  a  menace  to 
freedom,  and  the  militia  should  be  sufficient  for 
home  defence.  Count  Bismarck  simply  took 
the  King's  pleasure,  and  during  the  next  four 
years  raised  the  revenue  wanted,  dispensing 
with  consent  of  the  Lower  House.  Prussia 
had  found  its  master;  Germany  would  be 
made  ere  long  to  submit  by  force  of  pre- 
arranged victories;  and  Europe  entered  on 
the  Bismarckian  Era.  .  .  . 

Let  us,  now  we  have  reached  this  turning- 
point,  endeavour  to  get  a  fresh  and  distinct 
view  from  it  of  past  and  present.  I  conceive 
it  thus.  From  the  rise  of  Bonaparte  to  the 
Great  War  is  one  hundred  and  twenty  years, 
1794-1914.  That  period  falls  into  five  stages, 
each  dominated  by  a  single  name:  to  wit, 
Napoleon,  Metternich,  Louis  Napoleon,  Bis- 
marck, and  William  II,  German  Emperor. 
No  English  soldier  or  politician,  not  even  Wel- 
lington or  Disraeli,  can  be  set  on  a  level  as 


116       THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 

regards  European  influence  with  one  of  these. 
It  is  true  that  England  fought  Napoleon  to 
his  downfall.  We  hope,  with  increasing  prob- 
ability, that  we  shall  do  the  like  to  Kaiser 
Wilhelm.  But  so  long  as  the  balance  of  the 
Continent  hung  fairly  even,  this  country  was 
a  spectator  of  events  rather  than  active  in  them. 
Our  wars  with  France  down  to  1815  went  on 
no  theory  of  freedom  or  serfdom:  they  were 
directed  against  a  supremacy  which  threatened 
our  independence ;  but  in  the  course  of  defend- 
ing themselves  Britons  became  the  champions 
of  Europe,  which  might  otherwise  have  been 
transformed  for  ages  into  a  French  Empire. 
So  it  was  that  Burke,  the  foremost  of  Whigs  in 
his  American  period,  carried  the  nation  with 
him  as  a  Conservative  and  a  good  European 
after  1798.  He  did  not  lore  autocracy:  but  he 
would  use  it  to  put  down  the  Jacobins.  He  la- 
mented the  fate  of  Poland  while  delighting  in 
the  support  given  by  the  three  partitioning 
Powers  to  the  Royal  House  of  France.  De- 
mocracy furnished  a  motive  chiefly  to  reaction. 
The  successive  English  ministries  that  refused 
to  make  peace  with  Napoleon  were,  assuredly, 
not  of  a  Liberal  colour.  Castlereagh  and 
Wellington  were  Irish  Tories,  ascendancy 
men:  in  Prussia  they  would  have  marshalled 


REACTION  IIT 


the  Junkers  to  withstand  innovation.  But 
they  overthrew  the  Great  Despot,  although 
loyal  to  the  person  and  pretensions  of 
George  III. 

This,  I  consider,  was  due  to  the  "Custom 
of  England."  That  "Custom"  had  availed, 
one  century  after  another,  to  restrain  Charles 
V  and  Philip  II,  Louis  XIV  and  Louis  XV. 
It  made  of  these  Islands  a  reserve  of  freedom 
which  could  be  drawn  upon  in  Europe's  ex- 
tremity, yet  with  no  pomp  of  crusade  or 
preaching  of  first  principles.  Therefore  to 
the  Continent  in  peril  of  slavery  it  appears 
like  a  cold  calculating  egoism;  though  in  their 
heart  of  hearts  all  Western  peoples  know  that 
Britain  stands  up  foursquare,  "a  tower  in  the 
deep,"  it  was  finely  said,  the  last  refuge  of 
Old- World  liberties,  and  impregnable.  There 
are  noble  sentiments — nay,  convictions — ex- 
pressed with  force  and  dignity  in  Pitt's 
harangues  on  French  affairs  to  the  House 
of  Commons;  but  after  Louis  XVI  was 
executed,  says  Carlyle,  with  grim  humour, 
"England  has  cast  out  the  embassy;  England 
declares  war,  being  shocked  principally,  it 
would  seem,  at  the  condition  of  the  river 
Scheldt."  Something  not  entirely  unlike  this 
happened  in  1914i, 


118       THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 

As  late  as  Saturday,  August  1,  of  that 
fatidical  year,  the  English  Cabinet,  being 
urged  by  the  President  of  the  French  Re- 
public to  come  to  the  help  of  France,  which 
the  Germans  were  on  the  point  of  invading, 
answered:  "We  will  take  counsel  on  the 
matter."  They  were  still  considering  of  it 
when  news  arrived  that  the  Kaiser's  troops 
had  crossed  the  Belgian  frontier.  Antwerp 
was  threatened  once  more,  and  an  ultimatum 
flew  over  the  wires  to  Berlin.  Our  argu- 
ment was  sound,  our  obligation  certain,  and 
we  were  obeying  our  conscience;  but  those 
who  talked  of  British  egoism  had  been  given 
a  colourable  pretext.  John  Bull  does  not 
study  appearances  much  where  foreigners  are 
concerned.  It  may  be  a  fine  carelessness, 
but  it  is  bad  policy. 

To  continue  our  retrospect.  Napoleon 
subdued  the  Continent;  he  went  through 
to  the  ends  of  it,  he  "took  spoils  of  many 
nations,  insomuch  that  the  earth  was  quiet 
before  him."  Yet  still  Britain  held  out; 
sea-power  secured  empire,  and  the  house- 
breaker of  Europe  was  sent  on  a  British  boat 
to  St.  Helena.  Then  our  Wellingtons  and 
Castlereaghs,  as  though  their  task  was  done, 
suffered  the  autocrats  whom  they  had  saved 


REACTION  119 

to  cut  up  the  whole  of  Europe  with  dynastic 
carving-knives,  on  the  old  royal  plan,  having 
no  regard  to  race,  nationality,  religion,  or 
civilisation.  Poland  was  already  a  geographi- 
cal term;  Italy  became  one.  Countries  like 
Belgium  and  Holland,  Norway  and  Sweden, 
were  bound  together  as  if  Siamese  twins. 
Catholics  and  Lutherans  pulled  different  ways 
under  a  common  yoke  in  the  new-made 
Kingdom  of  Prussia.  Nothing  was  of  im- 
portance except  the  crowned  heads  which  had 
not  fallen  on  the  scaffold  with  Louis  XVI. 
Thus  did  the  reign  of  Metternich  begin,  and 
it  lasted  thirty-three  years.  The  balance  had 
been  restored  among  sovereigns.  No  Euro- 
pean war  broke  the  outward-seeming  peace  un- 
til 1854.  But  there  were  unrest,  misery  and, 
as  1848  proved,  an  irresistible  need  of  democ- 
racy among  the  peoples.  France  a  second 
time  proclaimed  the  Republic,  and  a  second 
time  was  betrayed  into  accepting  an  Empire. 
The  short,  calamitous  era  of  Napoleon  the 
Little  followed. 

England,  so  far  as  my  reading  allows  me  to 
form  an  opinion,  construed  her  interests  and 
her  duties  all  this  while,  and  so  late  as  the 
reign  of  Edward  VII,  by  a  standard  which 
was  not  European.     She  thought  from  first 


120      THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 

to  last  of  her  Asiatic  Empire  as  the  pivot  on 
which  her  pohcy  must  turn.  It  seems  a  strange 
thing  that  India  should  govern  Westminster; 
but  how  else  can  we  explain  the  aloofness 
of  our  statesmen  during  this  period  from  all 
Western  problems  except  the  Italian?  And 
their  conduct  towards  Italy  was  dictated  by 
feeling,  generous  indeed,  yet  without  prompt- 
ing them  to  look  round  for  a  connected 
scheme  of  the  inevitable  consequences.  I  note 
a  curious  parallel.  As  when  the  Corn  Laws 
were  abolished  and  British  agriculture  de- 
cayed, England's  vital  centre  of  gravity  was 
transferred  from  home  to  markets  oversea, 
in  like  manner  did  our  possessions  and,  in 
time,  our  colonies,  divert  the  political  centre 
outside  of  Europe. 

The  Crimean  War  will  furnish  a  vivid  illus- 
tration. Turkey  had  never  been  reckoned 
an  integral  part  of  the  Balance  of  Power, 
though  admitted  to  the  Congress  of  Vienna. 
But  her  "integrity  and  independence"  were 
thought  necessary  to  the  Asiatic  equili- 
brium; and  it  was  for  the  sake  of  India 
that  we  joined  Louis  Napoleon  in  making 
war  on  Russia.  That  was  the  true  un- 
spoken reason  why  in  1853,  as  afterwards  in 
1878,  we  were  declaring,  by  protocol  or  by 


REACTION  121 


music-hall  song,  "the  Russians  shall  not  have 
Constantinople." 

At  great  length,  in  a  style  of  architectural 
splendour,  A.  W.  Kinglake  has  unrolled 
before  us  the  motives,  causes,  and  con- 
ditions out  of  which  the  Crimean  War  sprang. 
But  in  those  nine  volumes  he  forgets  to 
mention  India.  Nevertheless,  in  Eothen  the 
brilliant  man  of  letters,  the  traveller  in  the 
East,  perceives  England  "leaning  over  to 
clasp"  that  beloved  high- jewelled  Empire, 
and  certain  one  day  to  plant  a  firm  foot  on 
Egyptian  soil.  The  Mediterranean  was  our 
path  to  Asia,  seen  in  vision  before  the  Suez 
Canal  was  made;  and  Egypt  is  now  the 
nerve-centre  of  our  existence  as  the  greatest 
Imperial  Power.  We  could  not  stand  by 
with  folded  arms  while  the  Tsar  was  coming 
down  on  Stamboul;  for  the  Russian  instead 
of  the  Turk  in  that  place  meant  a  complete 
revolution  affecting  Western  Asia.  Hence, 
though  never  touched  upon,  the  danger  to 
ourselves,  and  not  the  independence  of  Tur- 
key, was  the  momentum  which  decided  our 
action.  Granting  so  much,  the  Crimean  War 
has  a  justification  otherwise  wholly  wanting, 
and  nowhere  in  Kinglake's  volumes  sup- 
plied. Apart  from  this,  it  remains  what  Count 


122      THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 

Nesselrode  called  it,  "the  most  unintelligible 
war"  ever  known. 

Napoleon  III  was  a  hybrid,  at  once  liberal 
by  temper  and  absolute  by  destiny.  There- 
fore he  came  to  grief.  It  could  not  have 
fallen  out  otherwise.  The  German  dreamer, 
Italian  carbonaro,  exile  in  London  and  New 
York,  incapable  revolutionary,  acquainted  with 
prisons,  instrument  and  accomplice  of  a  gang 
of  sharpers — whose  air  and  bearing  exposed 
him  to  invidious  comparisons  with  undoubted 
Bonapartes,  like  Count  Walewski  and  the 
younger  Prince  Jerome — deserves  our  pitj^ 
but  will  more  probably  encounter  the  scorn  of 
future  historians.  Victor  Hugo  took  a  serio- 
comic delight  in  painting  him  as  a  monstrous 
birth  of  time.  He  seems  to  me  rather  the 
pale  Homeric  spectre  of  his  great  prede- 
cessor, wandering  round  the  places  where  he 
triumphed,  but  now  bloodless  and  ineffective. 
There  was  nothing  consecutive  in  his  ideas. 

It  was  not  he  that  made  Italy,  but  Mazzini, 
Gioberti,  Cavour,  Orsini,  Garibaldi.  The 
limitation  of  his  political  genius,  of  which 
Count  Bismarck  took  the  measure  during  his 
various  sojourns  at  Paris,  may  be  judged  by 
two  samples:  he  was  eager  to  recognize  the 
Southern  Confederacy,  thereby  breaking  up 


REACTION  123 


the  United  States  which  France  had  so  power- 
fully aided  in  their  beginning;  and  he  violated 
the  Monroe  Doctrine  by  invading  IMexico, 
which  he  would  never  have  been  allowed  to 
retain.  That  expedition  puffed  his  legend 
away  at  the  cannon's  mouth;  and  when 
Maximilian  was  shot  at  Queretaro  the  second 
French  Empire  took  its  deadly  wound. 
Neither  as  Liberal  nor  as  despot  did  this 
revenant  from  an  epoch  of  violence  and  glory 
win  renown.  But  the  stroke  of  some  fairy's 
wand  threw  an  illusion  about  him.  For 
twenty  years  he  was  the  ostensible  leader 
of  Europe.  And  he  led  his  own  nation  to 
Sedan;  while  his  defeat  brought  the  Prussians 
to  Paris,  and  enabled  them  to  proclaim  the 
German  Empire  in  the  storied  chambers  of 
Louis  XIV  at  Versailles. 

Bismarck  was  of  another  type  in  stature, 
intellect,  and  character,  as  outwardly  and 
inwardly  strong  as  Louis  Napoleon  was  feeble. 
By  temperament  no  less  than  by  kinship  he 
belonged  to  the  ruling  caste.  The  name  is 
found  in  Brandenburg  as  far  back  as  the 
thirteenth  century.  He  lived  among  those 
heavy  unsmiling  Pomeranians  that  serve  the 
War-machine  so  well,  without  intelligence  and 
therefore   without   question.      In   his    earlier 


124       THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 

years  some  tendency  towards  Liberal  notions 
was  discernible;  much,  however,  could  not 
have  come  of  it;  and  we  may  fancy  the 
you^'^^ul  Bismarck  a  companion  perhaps  of 
Hyde,  afterwards  Lord  Clarendon,  but  a 
democrat  never. 

He  passed  out  of  this  callow  stage,  by 
conversion  under  the  influence  of  Pietism, 
to  the  camp  of  the  German- Christian,  High 
Prussian,  monarchy  men.  This  view — a  sort 
of  Romanticism  adapted  to  royalty,  and  con- 
spicuous in  the  present  Kaiser's  deliberate 
and  spectacular  exhibitions  of  himself — would 
have  suggested,  as  it  did  to  a  not  inconsider- 
able number  of  Germans,  an  alliance  on  the 
most  intimate  terms  between  Berlin  and 
Vienna.  For  a  little  while  Bismarck  shared 
the  amiable  delusion.  His  residence  at  Frank- 
fort and  a  better  knowledge  of  the  Austrian 
diplomacy  put  it  to  flight.  Prussia,  to  the 
Hofburg,  was  still  an  upstart,  a  pretender  to 
be  kept  in  its  place  and  used  for  ends  not 
its  own. 

Surveying  the  confused  situation  with  a 
master's  eye,  and  judging  it  with  a  conscience 
which  was  devoted  not  so  much  to  the  person 
of  the  King  as  to  the  House  of  Hohenzollern, 
this  coming  dictator  of  a  policy  imposed  on 


REACTION  125 


king  and  country  alike  shaped  his  resolutions 
boldly,  and  never  went  back  from  them.  The 
German  Bund  must  be  dissolved,  Austria  shut 
out  and  compelled  to  follow  the  "Drang  nach 
Osten,"  or  Eastern  drive,  implied  in  its  very 
name;  and  the  Elbe  Duchies  must  fall  to 
Brandenburg  directly,  if  no  other  way  could 
be  devised,  in  order  that  Prussia  might  pos- 
sess a  longer  sea-coast  and  buUd  an  efficient 
navy.  The  Kiel  Canal,  uniting  the  Baltic 
and  the  German  Ocean,  had  its  place  in  his 
designs.  We  cannot  but  admire  so  lucid  a 
prevision  of  the  future.  That  it  would  cost  a 
war  between  Hohenzollern  and  Habsburg  was 
fully  taken  into  account.  The  scheme,  let  us 
remark  in  passing,  was  German,  but  not  Pan- 
German.  It  aimed  at  excluding,  not  absorb- 
ing, Catholic  Austria.  The  Prussian  Empire, 
whenever  it  came  about,  was  to  be  the  greatest 
of  Protestant  Powers. 

In  such  determined  fashion  did  Bismarck, 
governing  without  a  Budget,  disliked  by 
Queen  Augusta  and  the  Court,  more  trusted 
than  liked  by  dull  King  William,  take  in  hand 
the  problem  of  Central  Europe.  If  it  were 
still  permitted  to  show  by  antithesis  how  the 
personages  of  history  differ,  we  might  attempt 
a  contrast  in  colours  between  Bismarck  and 


126       THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 

Metternich,  to  whose  authority  he  succeeded 
on  the  Continent,  but  whose  measures  he 
reversed  to  the  profit  of  Berlin.  Suffice  it 
that  Metternich  had  the  lightness  and  bright- 
ness of  the  most  captivating  Austrian  society 
among  his  gifts ;  that  he  was  fond  of  pleasure, 
wheedling  and  cajoling  his  adversaries;  and 
though  unsparing  of  torture,  mental  and 
physical,  for  those  who  would  not  submit  to 
his  absolute  sway,  he  has  left  a  more  genial 
impression  than  so  pitiless  a  statecraft  deserves 
to  make.  He  was,  too,  something  of  a 
believer  in  the  Christian  Monarchy  all  along, 
though  probably  at  heart  a  sceptic.  He 
defeated  Napoleon  by  intrigue  as  Wellington 
defeated  him  in  the  field.  And  he  renewed 
Austria's  hold  on  Germany,  while  saving  her 
non-German  territories  from  partition. 

Bismarck  had  none  of  the  graces,  and  could 
afford  to  dispense  with  all  of  them.  My 
brilliant,  much-daring  friend,  Richard  Dehan, 
describes  the  "man  of  iron"  as  "huge,  loud, 
voracious,  powerful,  tempestuously  jovial  or 
ironically  grim."  It  was  "impossible  to 
despise  the  finished  picture,  because  the  man 
was  so  much  a  man."  His  native  energy 
was  inexhaustible,  his  will  not  unequal  to  it. 
He    showed    in   his    domestic    relations    deep 


REACTION  127 


and  even  tender  feelings.  With  a  Teutonic 
bluntness  and  ill-humour  he  combined  a 
powerful  Cromwellian  cast  of  public  speak- 
ing, original  and  indomitable;  to  which  he 
added  the  calculated  falseness  of  an  "honest 
broker,"  who  embroils  parties  while  under- 
taking to  reconcile  them,  and  in  every  treaty 
which  he  concludes  leaves  a  loophole  whereby 
to  slip  out  of  it.  His  system  of  double  insur- 
ance became  famous  when  the  Triple  Alliance, 
formed  to  balance  the  Franco-Russian  entente, 
was  found  to  have  been  complicated  by  an 
understanding  with  Petersburg  itself.  He 
once  stood  for  a  combination  with  Napoleon 
III,  which  would  not  have  been  allowed  to 
cross  a  line  of  his  own  plans.  That  he 
detested  England  was  due  in  part  to  his  loath- 
ing of  democracy  as  we  practise  it;  but  also 
to  the  impossibility  of  drawing  us  into  a  treaty 
beyond  revision  or  rejection  by  Parliament. 

For  monarchs  and  royal  houses  other  than 
the  Prussian  his  respect  was  scanty  indeed. 
No  remorse  withheld  him  from  deposing  the 
King  of  Hanover  and  various  German  princes, 
beaten  in  the  War  of  1866.  The  alliance  wnth 
Italy  against  the  Emperor  Francis  Joseph 
was  highly  repugnant  to  King  William;  but 
such  considerations  did  not  affect  the  INIinister 


128       THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 

who,  as  a  man  of  rare  individuality  and  infinite 
daring,  knew  himself  to  be  more  than  a  match 
for  all  the  European  royalties  put  together. 
The  Pagan  priest  venerates  his  idol  in  its 
shrine;  but  his  daily  service  of  it  would  lead 
him  to  agree  with  the  Hebrew  psalmist,  whose 
estimate  of  its  faculties,  we  know,  was  not 
flattering.  And  thus  in  Bismarck's  alternate 
driving  and  coaxing  of  William  the  Great  to 
play  his  part,  and  let  greatness  be  thrust  upon 
him,  we  may  detect  the  supreme  irony  which 
is  not  absent  from  human  affairs. 

For  this  man,  however,  the  hour  of  good 
fortune  had  struck.  He  was  in  the  rare 
position  of  genius  when  it  finds  a  capitalist 
with  millions  to  execute  its  designs.  During 
seven-and-twenty  years  the  Count  and  Prince 
acted  as  Mayor  of  the  Palace,  managing  "the 
King  my  Master"  like  a  huge,  awkward 
specimen  of  blind  power.  To  compare  Bis- 
marck with  Richelieu  is  natural;  but  he  was, 
in  effect,  the  Napoleon  of  Reaction,  undoing 
by  war  and  peace  the  work  which  France  in 
its  Revolution  had  accomplished.  His  suc- 
cessor. Von  Billow,  describes  him  truly  as 
"the  exact  opposite  of  a  leader  of  progress." 

We  may  apply  to  him  what  Treitschke  has 
written  of  Frederick  the  Great,  who  set  for 


REACTION  129 


Bismarck  a  pattern  and  a  policy:  "The  main- 
spring in  this  potent  nature  was  the  ruthless 
and  terror-striking  directness  of  the  German. 
Frederick  gives  himself  as  he  is,  and  sees 
things  as  they  are.  In  the  long  row  of  his 
letters  and  writings  there  is  not  one  line  in 
which  he  endeavours  to  extenuate  his  deeds, 
or  to  adorn  his  own  picture  for  posterity." 
Whether  we  should  term  this  "royal  frank- 
ness" or  the  arrogance  of  a  successful  Jack 
Sheppard,  may  be  left  undecided.  In  both 
cases  we  do  know  from  the  men  themselves 
what  were  the  motives  which  inspired  their 
conduct.  Each  held  the  maxim,  stated  long 
before  by  the  Florentine  who  taught  Realism 
in  politics,  "If  there  is  anything  to  gain  by 
being  honest,  let  us  be  honest;  if  it  is  neces- 
sary to  deceive,  let  us  deceive." 

Bismarck's  attitude  towards  Austria,  which 
he  used  and  despised,  was  that  of  Frederick, 
with  a  difference  not  of  sentiment  but  of 
action,  for  which  the  time  had  come.  "Since 
the  predictions  of  the  astrologers,"  says  Von 
Treitschke,  "at  the  court  of  the  Great  Elector, 
there  always  floated  about  the  Hohenzollerns 
a  vague  presentiment  that  they  were  marked 
out  to  bear  the  sword  and  sceptre  of  the  Holy 
Roman  Empire."    That  Empire  had  gone  to 


130       THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 

the  tomb  of  all  the  Capulets;  and  the  oecume- 
nical or  world-significance  of  Pan-Germanism 
had  not  dawned  upon  Bismarck,  whose  ambi- 
tion did  not  travel  beyond  the  horizon.  But 
he  well  knew  the  importance  of  supplanting 
Austria  by  seizing  on  the  leadership  of  Ger- 
many; and  he  meant  his  King  to  have  it. 

Bismarck  desired  not  the  "holiness"  nor  the 
"Roman"  character  (which  signified  interfer- 
ence in  Italy)  of  the  old  medieval  concep- 
tion. He  pursued  what  Treitschke  terms  "a 
purely  secular  statecraft  in  the  ideas  of  the 
Reformation,"  or  "an  alliance  of  temporal 
princes  under  Prussia's  governing  influence." 
And  it  is  true  to  say  that  "what  was  left  of 
the  old  Germanic  community,"  which  during 
the  eighteenth  century  had  been  decaying 
more  and  more,  now  in  the  year  1862  "scarcely 
presei^ed  the  semblance  of  life."  Austria  was 
merely  conservative;  Prussia  was  aggressive; 
and  the  aggressor  won. 

The  question  of  Schleswig-Holstein,  of 
which  the  very  name,  like  "  Jarndyce  and  Jarn- 
dyce"  in  Chancery,  emptied  the  drawing-rooms 
of  diplomatists,  brought  the  new  statesmanship 
into  dazzling  light.  Bismarck's  'prentice  hand 
executed  a  master  stroke,  so  bold,  fortunate, 
and    Machiavellian,    that    not   the    Frederick 


REACTION  131 


of  the  Prussian  Morning  Talks  could  have 
beaten  him.  This  was  the  first  Silesian  War 
imitated  and  equalled,  on  the  coast  of  the 
Northern  and  Baltic  waters,  which  henceforth 
should  belong  to  Brandenburg.  We  must 
consider  it  a  little. 

Take  no  fright,  my  benevolent  British  com- 
panion in  study,  as  if  I  were  going  down 
myself  and  carrying  you  with  me  into  the 
deeps  of  another  family  litigation  between 
royal  and  quasi-royal  Houses,  the  Danish, 
Prussian,  Augustenburg,  with  constitutional 
questions  thrown  in.  Not  at  all.  The  matter 
is  simplicity  itself.  In  1864  Prussia  had  just 
as  much  right  to  Sleswick  (so  we  used  to  spell 
the  word,  not  without  significance)  or  to  Hol- 
stein  as  you  and  I  have  on  this  April  Monday 
morning  when  I  am  inditing  these  sentences. 
The  King  of  Denmark,  Christian  IX,  other- 
wise termed  the  Protocol  King,  who  succeeded 
to  the  throne  in  November,  1863,  had  his 
claims.  The  Augustenburgs,  partly  owing  to 
Bismarck's  diplomacy  some  years  earlier,  had 
renounced  theirs,  but  broke  the  engagement 
when  Frederick  VII  died.  The  people,  mixed 
German  and  non-German,  would  be  thought 
to  have  claims  also  by  Liberal  Europe.  One 
thing  was  undeniable:  Prussia  could  not  put 


132       THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 

in  her  demand,  not  even  by  Mithelehnung  or 
Erhverhriiderung,  to  a  yard  of  land  in  either 
duchy. 

But  what  was  that  to  Count  Bismarck? 
He  wanted  a  seaboard  for  his  royal  master; 
he  could  get  it  by  force  and  hold  it  by 
chicanery.  He  did  so.  "From  the  begin- 
ning," he  wrote  in  his  Reminiscences  long 
afterwards,  "I  kept  annexation  steadily  before 
my  eyes."  And  Germany  cried  "Hoch"  with 
trembling.  For  as  the  Duchies  fared  to-day 
so  might  other  lands  lying  conveniently  near 
the  Prussian  borders  fare  to-morrow. 

In  the  art  of  political  chess  few  problems 
have  been  more  neatly  resolved.  It  appeared 
in  law  to  be  desperately  intricate,  refusing  to 
yield  up  its  tangle  at  the  bidding  of  all  the 
Powers  combined.  Then  Bismarck  opened 
with  a  gambit  of  the  German  Bund  which 
delegated  Austria  and  Prussia  to  act  on  its 
behalf.  They  acted  by  powder  and  shot;  the 
Danes  fought  well,  but  were  defeated;  and 
on  August  1,  1864,  Schleswig-Holstein  and 
Lauenburg  were  ceded  by  the  Treaty  of 
Vienna  to  what  some  one  has  called  the  "high 
marauding  parties." 

Now    Bismarck    proceeded    to    checkmate 


REACTION  133 


Austria.  He  had  in  the  campaign  for  the 
Duchies  found  a  pretext  to  invade  Den- 
mark— the  crossing  of  the  frontier  by  a  few 
Prussian  hussars.  He  never  dreamt  of  observ- 
ing a  treaty  beyond  the  moment  when  he 
could  turn  it  to  advantage.  This  doctrine 
has  been  summed  up  in  the  shppery  diplomatic 
phrase,  "Rebus  sic  stantibus"  ("While  the 
situation  lasts"),  and  later  still  in  words 
spoken  by  the  German  Chancellor,  Bethmann 
Hollweg,  to  Sir  Edward  Goschen,  our  then 
ambassador  at  Berlin,  touching  a  "scrap  of  pa- 
per." Bismarck  manoeuvred  in  the  question  of 
annexing  the  Duchies  for  his  biggest  prize, 
the  absolute  control  of  the  Fatherland  by 
shutting  out  the  Habsburgs.  They  on  their 
part  clung  with  both  hands  to  a  falling  dig- 
nity. At  charming  Gastein,  in  the  Salzburg 
region,  August  25,  1865,  an  ostensible  agi'ee- 
ment  "papered  over  the  cracks,"  which  were 
yawning  into  "rents  of  ruin"  for  the  old 
Imperial  Power.  It  was  only  a  truce,  and 
Bismarck  saw  to  it  that  the  Prussian  army 
should  be  brought,  in  weapons,  discipline,  and 
numbers,  to  the  highest  pitch.  Men  of  supreme 
ability  were  at  his  disposal.  Von  Roon  to 
organise,  Von  ^Moltke  to  plan  and  execute 


134       THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 

the  inevitable  campaign.  The  Duchies  were 
lost  for  ever  to  their  lawful  owners,  whoever 
these  might  be. 

There  is  a  passage  in  Froude's  History  of 
England  (vol.  i,  p.  480)  which,  when  I  read  it 
in  our  College  library  in  Rome,  just  before 
1870,  struck  me  as  profoundly  true  and  writ- 
ten with  fine  feeling.  I  transcribe  it.  Froude 
observes,  "Where  changes  are  about  to  take 
place  of  great  and  enduring  moment,  a  kind 
of  prologue,  on  a  small  scale,  sometimes  antici- 
pates the  true  opening  of  the  drama;  like  the 
first  drops  which  give  notice  of  the  coming 
storm,  or  as  if  the  shadows  of  the  reality  were 
projected  forwards  into  the  future,  and  imi- 
tated in  dumb  show  the  movements  of  the  real 
actors  in  the  story." 

Such  a  prologue  was  the  episode  of  the  Elbe 
Duchies.  Their  deliberate  seizure  in  defiance 
of  right,  and  of  agreements  to  which  Prussia 
had  set  her  seal;  the  cunning  with  which  Bis- 
marck persuaded  his  intended  victim,  Austria, 
to  snatch  a  prey  that  he  meant  to  take  from 
her;  the  small  but  effective  devices  that  enabled 
him  to  overcome  the  conscience  of  his  king; 
the  justification  offered  carelessly  that  treaties 
not  backed  with  force  do  not  really  count;  the 
aim  disclosed  when  it  was  likely  to  be  attained 


REACTION  135 


that  Prussia  wanted  a  war  station  at  Kiel,  and 
jmist  get  it  by  hook  or  by  crook;  and,  finally, 
the  stepping-stone  made  of  one  triumph  to 
lead  up  to  a  second  and  a  greater — all  these 
incidents  relate  in  dumb  show  the  story  of  a 
drama  which,  beginning  on  the  European  scale 
in  1866,  by  the  Seven  Weeks  War,  then 
enveloping  the  French  Empire  in  disaster  and 
bringing  on  the  Third  Republic  in  1870,  has 
now  taken  the  whole  world  for  a  stage  and 
the  world-power  or  the  ruin  of  Germany  for 
a  theme.  We  have  seen  the  prologue;  we 
are  acting  in  the  play. 

Yet  another  reflection — partly  mine,  but 
derived  from  a  view  which  I  find  admirably 
wrought  out  by  Kinglake  in  his  second  volume 
(p.  142),  describing  "the  great  island-Power," 
meaning  Britain,  as  "the  one  which,  by  the 
well-informed  statesmen  of  the  Continent,  is 
looked  to  as  the  surest  safeguard  against 
wrong.  Europe  leans,"  he  says,  "Europe  rests 
on  this  faith."  And  he  continues  in  sentences 
like  the  following — 

"So  the  moment  it  is  made  to  appear  that 
for  any  reason  England  is  disposed  to  abdi- 
cate, or  to  suspend  for  a  while  the  performance 
of  her  European  duties,  that  moment  the 
wrong-doer  sees  his  opportunity  and  begins  to 


136       THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 

stir.  .  .  .  Monarchs  find  that  to  conspire  for 
gain  of  territory,  or  to  have  other  princes  con- 
spiring against  them,  is  the  alternative  pre- 
sented to  their  choice.  The  system  of  Europe 
becomes  decomposed,  and  war  follows.  There- 
fore, exactly  in  proportion  as  England  values 
the  peace  of  Europe,  she  ought  to  abstain 
from  every  word  and  from  every  sign  which 
tends  to  give  the  wrong-doer  a  hope  of  her 
acquiescence." 

Since  the  troubles  between  the  German 
Diet  and  the  Danish  King  had  begun,  our 
Ministers  (to  allow  them  the  credit  which  they 
deserve)  were  sensible  of  Prussia's  designs  on 
the  Duchies;  and  Palmerston,  Russell,  and 
Disraeli  knew  well  that  danger  to  Britain's 
naval  supremacy  would  follow  if  those  designs 
succeeded.  To  preserve  the  integrity  of 
Denmark,  while  reconciling  by  diplomacy  the 
various  conflicting  parties,  appeared  to  the 
English  Cabinet  wise  and  just.  But  they  had 
to  reckon  with  the  Prince  Consort,  whose  view 
of  England  never  ceased  to  be  that  of  a 
German  in  outlook  and  sympathy.  We  learn 
from  the  correspondence  of  Queen  Victoria 
that  the  Cabinet  favoured  one  line  of  policy, 
such  I  have  sketched,  and  the  Court  favoured 
another  out  of  regard  for  Germany,  but  as 


REACTION  137 


events  proved,  wholly  to  the  advantage  of 
Berlin.  The  Prince  Consort,  we  must  not 
forget,  was  by  the  nature  of  his  position  per- 
manent Foreign  Minister.  To  his  principles 
the  Queen  adhered  as  to  a  law. 

Palmerston  wrote  to  Lord  John  Russell, 
June  23,  1850,  "Is  not  the  Queen  requiring 
that  I  should  be  Minister,  not  indeed  for 
Austria,  Russia,  or  France,  but  for  the  Ger- 
manic Confederation?"  These  words,  laid 
before  her  Majesty,  brought  a  sharp  answer 
dictated,  no  doubt,  by  Prince  Albert,  whom 
they  seem  to  arraign.  In  the  same  year 
Queen  Victoria  tells  her  uncle,  the  King  of 
the  Belgians,  "It  is  a  mistake  to  think  the 
supremacy  of  Prussia  is  what  is  wished  for." 
Certainly  the  Prince  Consort  did  not  wish  for 
it.  He  belonged  to  a  minor  ruling  House; 
and  his  philosophy  would  be,  to  use  an  apt 
German  expression,  kleinstddtiscli,  or  as  we 
say,  provincial.  But  he  was  not  likely  to  feel, 
as  Englishmen  do,  the  truth  and  greatness 
of  Milton's  or  of  Kinglake's  contention  that 
this  "island-power"  is  the  home  of  freedom 
and  the  judgment-seat  of  European  equity. 
His  best-known  declaration,  that  "constitu- 
tional government  is  on  its  trial,"  may  be 
construed  without  injustice  to  the  effect  that 


138       THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 

a  return  of  autocracy  is  always  possible,  and 
perhaps  would  turn  out  to  be  a  very  good 
thing.  I  cannot  praise  that  language.  It  has 
happily  not  taken  root  in  the  British  Empire. 

But  Queen  Victoria,  who  was  a  great  consti- 
tutional sovereign,  and  also  "a  very  woman," 
allowed  the  Prince's  view  to  decide  her  action 
as  regarded  the  Elbe  Duchies  from  first  to  last. 
At  no  time  would  she  consent  to  maintain  "the 
integrity  of  the  Danish  Monarchy."  On  May  1, 
1858,  she  wrote  to  Lord  Malmesbury  that  she 
could  not  sanction  a  proposal  tending  in  any 
such  direction,  "a  false  step  on  our  part  may 
produce  a  war  between  France  and  Germany." 
In  this  reason  alleged,  unless  Germany  meant 
Prussia — which  the  Queen  elsewhere  describes 
as  "the  only  large  and  powerful  really  German 
Power" — it  meant  a  negligible  quantity. 

Sir  Theodore  Martin,  the  editor  of  the 
Queen's  Letters,  bids  us  note  that  "The 
Queen  and  Prince  considered  that  the  atti- 
tude of  the  British  Government  was  un- 
necessarily pro-Danish."  In  1864,  according 
to  Baron  Beust,  "Queen  Victoria  personally 
intervened  to  prevent  British  action  in  favour 
of  Denmark."  Was  there  a  diplomatist  living 
in  that  year  who  believed  that  when  Prussia 
and  Austria  were  victorious  the  Duchies  would 


REACTION  139 


become  little  sovereign  States  like  Sachsen- 
Coburg  or  Sachsen- Weimar?  And  if  not,  who 
was  the  "tertius  gaudens,"  the  fox  that  would 
run  away  with  the  pheasant?  It  is  rather  sad 
to  look  back  on  England's  abdication  in  those 
days  of  her  duty  towards  Europe.  I  remem- 
ber as  a  boy  reading  the  debate  in  the  House 
of  Commons  on  intervention  to  save  Denmark, 
and  I  admired  Disraeli's  wisdom.  To  no  pur- 
pose did  he  plead.  The  prologue  to  the  great 
drama  ran  its  course.  Henceforth  Count 
Bismarck  might  be  sure  that  England  would 
watch  his  career  as  a  disinterested  looker-on 
in  the  stalls.  She  might  talk  loud;  she  would 
do  nothing,  so  long  as  Queen  Victoria  lived, 
to  thwart  his  ambition. 


CHAPTER  VII 


Austria,   Rome,   and   France — the   Crisis   of 
the  Century 

HOLDING  with  Clausewitz,  though  not 
having  learnt  it  from  him,  that  war 
and  peace  should  be  parts  of  one  consistent 
state-policy,  Count  Bismarck,  in  1866,  re- 
sembled an  artist  who  was  beginning  to  paint, 
on  a  canvas  carefully  prepared,  a  great  pic- 
ture, the  design  of  which  was  already  clear  to 
his  imagination.  He  would  seize  occasion  by 
the  forelock;  but  he  had  no  need  to  improvise 
a  plan.  The  Bismarckian  scheme  was  coherent, 
and  proved  its  adaptation  to  the  world  of  things 
as  they  are  by  its  success.  To  isolate  Austria, 
then  to  fall  upon  her,  and  in  the  stricken  field 
to  wrest  from  the  Habsburgs  their  place  in 
German  rule,  was  the  immediate  object. 

Bismarck  did  all  that  in  him  lay  to  avoid 
meeting  a  world  in  arms.  He  recognised  that 
if  he  went  to  war,  he  must,  before  declaring 
it,  secure  the  Prussian  fronts  on  east  and  west. 
He  did  not  require  to  be  told  that  Frederick  the 

140 


THE  CRISIS  OF  THE  CENTURY  141 


Great  earned  his  peculiar  glory  not  by  winning 
the  Seven  Years  War,  but  by  not  losing  it; 
and  that  its  termination  might  have  been 
Prussia's  downfall,  had  not  a  demented  Tsar 
Peter  in  1762  recalled  his  troops  which  were 
attacking  the  Hohenzollern,  and  so  withdrawn 
Russia  from  the  number  of  his  enemies.  Since 
then,  no  Prussian  sovereign  had  broken  the 
long  peace  with  his  tremendous  neighbour. 
In  Bismarck's  philosophy  to  keep  that  peace 
intact  was  a  first  principle. 

Accordingly,  when  the  ill-advised  Polish 
Rebellion  surged  up  in  1863,  the  authorities  of 
Prussia,  civil  and  military,  gave  every  possible 
assistance  to  the  Tsar's  troops,  short  of  joining 
them  to  put  down  the  rising  by  force.  Next 
year  it  was  the  turn  of  Russia  to  show  its 
benevolent  neutrality  by  letting  things  take 
their  course  in  the  Danish  war.  The  Slav 
Power  would  now  be  quiescent  when  Austria 
looked  round  for  help.  Bismarck  had  gone 
as  ambassador  to  Petersburg  in  earlier  years. 
He  cultivated  the  Imperial  family,  made  many 
friends,  learnt  to  speak  a  little  of  the  beautiful 
and  difficult  Russian  language,  and  registered 
a  vow  that  he  would  never  bring  the  Cossack 
on  his  shoulders  if  he  could  help  it.  Peace, 
then,  with  Russia  was  a  foregone  conclusion. 


142       THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 

It  lasted  down  to  August  1,  1914;  and  when 
the  German  ambassador  presented  his  mas- 
ter's ultimatum  to  M.  Sazonov,  he  almost 
fainted  with  horror.  Well  he  might,  for  it 
was  taking  up  the  sheet-anchor  of  Bismarck's, 
nay  of  Frederick's  policy,  and  casting  it  into 
fathomless  deeps. 

Safe  on  the  Eastern  front,  Bismarck  turned 
to  the  Western.  In  October,  1865,  his  fate- 
ful conversations  with  Napoleon  III  took 
place  at  Biarritz.  The  French  Empire  was 
sickening  unto  death.  It  could  not  demand 
aid  or  service  from  a  single  ally;  not  so  much 
as  from  Italy  which  it  had  helped  to  make  a 
free  nation.  On  strained  terms  with  England 
since  the  annexation  of  Nice  and  Savoy,  the 
Emperor  kept  out  of  the  imbroglio  thanks  to 
which  the  Elbe  Duchies  passed  into  Prussian 
hands.  His  attitude  towards  Poland  estranged 
the  Tsar;  but  there  was  no  force  behind  it, 
and  the  insurgents  had  been  left  to  their 
fate.  Louis  Bonaparte  found  himself  called 
upon  at  Biarritz  to  decide  whether  he  would 
take  up  arms  against  Austria  for  a  fixed  price, 
or  against  Prussia  with  uncertain  chances  of 
booty,  or  against  neither.  He  stood  irresolute 
while  Bismarck  wrapped  him  round  skillfully 
in  a  net  of  delusion,  with  talk  about  compen- 


THE  CRISIS  OF  THE  CENTURY  143 

sations  and  possibilities.  The  heavy-winged 
bird  was  caught.  And  on  April  8,  1866,  Italy 
engaged  herself  to  attack  Austria  so  soon  as 
war  was  inevitable.  Venetia  was  to  be  her 
reward. 

Of  the  millions  who  were  now  to  fight  and 
suffer  in  realising  Bismarck's  ambition,  no 
thought  entered  these  controlling  minds  except 
as  yielding  money,  strength,  and  life  on  the 
principle  "sic  vos  non  vobis,"  when  required 
.so  to  do.  Here  is  a  consideration  worth 
our  regard.  In  the  year  1861  Alexander  II 
emancipated  the  Russian  peasants;  and  in 
the  same  year  Abraham  Lincoln  was  com- 
pelled to  accept  the  war  against  the  Con- 
federate States,  which  ended  in  the  abolition 
of  negro  slavery.  But  in  1866  absolute  power 
reigned  from  the  Bay  of  Biscay  to  the  Yellow 
Sea.  Three  vast  autocracies  covered  all  that 
space,  and  the  populations  toiled  submissively 
for  masters  who  looked  on  them  as  mere 
capital  in  the  gamble  of  politics.  Mankind 
moves  very  slowly.  Nevertheless,  a  double 
emancipation,  in  the  Old  World  and  the  New, 
had  in  it  some  promise  and  potency. 

Austria,  then,  "the  meeting-place  of  Teuton 
and  Slav,"  was  to  be  taken  by  the  throat  and 
pitched  headlong  out  of  Germany,  with  a  rude 


144       THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 

parting  injunction,  "Henceforth  mind  your 
own  business,  and  look  down  the  Danube 
towards  Belgrade.  Stand  sentinel  against 
Russia;  keep  the  key  of  Constantinople  in 
Vienna.  Lebewohir  We  have  been  amazed 
since  1914  at  the  way  in  which  the  Kaiser- 
lichs  get  beaten  and  the  quantity  of  thrashings 
which  all  these  peoples,  individually  brave 
enough,  can  absorb.  The  Empire  seems  always 
on  the  point  of  breaking  up,  yet  has  never 
been  broken;  it  may  be  ramshackle,  but  is 
remarkably  elastic,  and  advance  has  followed 
on  recoil  as  it  were  by  law.  Hence  the  saying, 
attributed  to  Palacky,  the  historian  of  the 
Czechs,  "Did  Austria  not  exist  we  should  have 
to  invent  it,"  which  the  Hungarian  patriot 
Pauly  allowed  to  be  sound  history. 

What  is  the  inner  meaning  of  this  curious 
fact?  It  is  that  Teuton  and  Slav  have 
"met,"  but  never  amalgamated;  and  that 
the  Southern  Slavs,  divided  geographically 
and  forming  a  fringe  round  a  nucleus  of 
Germans  on  the  Upper  Danube  and  Mag- 
yars on  the  middle  of  that  stream,  are  held 
in  this  double  chain,  but  ever  straining  at  it. 
Their  rivalries,  complicated  with  a  struggle 
going  on  at  all  times  between  Vienna  and 
Buda-Pest,  make  it  impossible  that  the  K.K. 


THE  CRISIS  OF  THE  CENTURY  145 


Army  {KaiserUcli-Komglicli  is  the  label  on 
everything  in  Austria)  should  be  welded 
into  a  united  host.  The  two-headed  eagle 
has,  in  consequence,  lost  half  his  feathers 
and  become  a  laughing-stock  to  the  other 
three  Imperial  fowl  of  heaven,  the  Russian, 
Prussian,  and  French,  to  say  nothing  of 
the  Polish  still  biding  his  time.  But  the 
Habsburgs  were  taught  by  Rome,  which  long 
recognised  them  as  emperors,  and  even  now 
venerates  the  shadow  of  the  name,  how  to 
recover  from  defeat  and  to  hold  out  by  delay. 
The  House  of  Austria  survives  in  virtue  of 
a  great  principle  which  science  calls  inertia. 
Will  it  survive  much  longer?  And  is  it,  as 
Dr.  Emil  Reich  argued,  a  necessary  evil?  It 
saw  the  rise  of  Prussia;  who  knows  but  it  may 
look  on  at  its  fall  ? 

I  am  not  praying  for  the  Hofburg,  which 
is  autocracy  entrenched  in  pride  and  legalism, 
with  a  gold-aristocracy  just  outside  its  gates. 
But  there  is  a  proverb  about  threatened  men. 
Bismarck,  whose  regulated  aims  were  proofs 
of  genius  and  his  wars  "deliberate  lightning," 
knew  to  a  pace  how  far  he  was  going  when 
he  sent  the  armies  of  Prussia,  irresistible,  but 
never  out  of  hand,  over  the  Saxon  frontier. 
The  French  Emperor  anticipated  a  long  war, 


146       THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 


exhausted  combatants,  and  his  own  interven- 
tion, as  the  peace-compelling  Jove.  Such  was 
neither  Bismarck's  plan  nor  the  outcome.  In 
eighteen  days,  June  15  to  July  3,  1866,  the 
campaign  was  begun  and  ended  in  Bohemia. 
The  battle  which  in  Western  telegrams  was 
called  Sadowa,  fought  on  the  last-mentioned 
date,  finished  the  Austrian  leadership  of  Ger- 
mans and  shattered  Napoleon's  hopes.  On 
August  23,  at  Nickolsburg,  that  leadership 
was  transferred  to  Berlin.  The  new  Germany 
was  divided,  by  way  of  propitiating  France, 
into  Confederations  north  and  south  of  the 
Main,  but  by  force  of  events  both  came  under 
Bismarck's  disposal.  Prussia  henceforth  might 
claim  to  be  the  centre  and  decisive  element  in 
the  Balance  of  Power. 

England  looked  on  from  afar,  busy  with 
reform  of  Parliament  and  with  the  palings  of 
Hyde  Park,  which  I  saw  thrown  down  in 
the  summer  weather  on  July  23,  1866,  by  a 
surging  crowd.  Europe  and  its  affairs  did 
not  concern  her.  Was  France  likely  to  be 
menaced?  Suppose  it,  what  then?  We  were 
under  no  obligation  to  protect  France.  The 
Queen's  unalterable  German  sympathies  now 
became  of  necessity  sympathies  with  Berlin. 
Her  eldest  daughter  was  married  to  the  Prince 


THE  CRISIS  OF  THE  CENTURY  147 


Royal  of  Prussia;  their  son  William,  born  in 
1859,  could  not  fail,  if  he  outlived  his  father, 
to  be  King;  and  whatever  else  the  art  of 
Count  Bismarck  should  bring  of  honour  and 
dignity  to  the  House  of  Brandenburg  would 
be  his.  Sympathy  went  with  family  alliance; 
nor  did  it  seem  that  the  interests  of  Great 
Britain  would  suffer. 

Having  won  his  second  game  of  political 
chess  and  swiftly  checkmated  the  Emperor- 
King,  it  was  now  incumbent  on  Bismarck  to 
defeat  the  House  of  Bonaparte ;  for  Napoleon 
could  not  give  up  the  position  of  supremacy 
in  European  affairs,  hitherto  held  by  France, 
without  losing  his  throne  and  ruining  his 
dynasty.  Bewildered,  hesitating,  and  stricken 
by  disease,  the  miserable  victim  of  ambition 
and  pleasure,  of  whom  all  the  ablest  advisers 
were  dead,  went  knocking  for  assistance  at 
doors  which  would  scarcely  open  to  him. 

He  made  advances  to  Italy  by  the  Con- 
vention which  withdrew  his  army  of  occupa- 
tion from  Rome.  But  Italy,  glorying  in 
her  acquisition  of  Venetia,  had  no  desire 
to  throw  away  the  Prussian  friendship  with- 
out which  never  could  she  have  torn  it 
from  the  grasp  of  Austria.  He  dreamt  of 
playing    once    more    the    traditional    French 


148       THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 

hand,  by  defending  the  South  Germans  from 
further  encroachments  of  the  Hohenzollern. 
It  was  a  well-known  manoeuvre,  and  had  it 
been  attempted  before  Sadowa  it  might  have 
succeeded,  with  an  efficient  French  army  to 
carry  it  through.  Now  it  was  too  late.  Bis- 
marck had  entered  into  treaties  offensive  and 
defensive  with  those  very  States  when  peace 
was  signed.  By  virtue  of  them,  should  war 
break  out,  the  King  of  Prussia  became  com- 
mander-in-chief of  all  the  German  forces. 
When  Thiers  lifted  his  shrill  voice  for  some- 
thing which  meant  an  attack  on  the  Rhine,  in 
March,  1867,  these  engagements,  secret  until 
then,  were  published  as  a  warning  from  the 
new  Germany  of  what  aggression  might 
expect. 

Napoleon  also  wanted  Luxemburg;  he 
wanted  the  left  bank  of  the  Rhine ;  he  wanted 
Belgium.  The  principle  of  nationalities,  for 
which  he  had  gone  to  war  with  Austria  in 
1859,  he  now  threw  to  the  winds.  Bismarck 
drew  scorn  upon  the  Imperial  hotel-keeper 
who  was  constantly' presenting  his  bill.  Had 
a  good  German  fairy  wished  to  bless  the  new- 
birth  of  the  Fatherland,  here  was  the  luckiest 
gift  she  could  have  chosen — an  impotent  and 
clamorous  foe  west  of  the  Rhine,  threatening 


THE  CRISIS  OF  THE  CENTURY  119 

its  unity  while  he  cringed  before  it.  The 
people  shouted  their  old  song  in  Napoleon's 
face,  "Sie  sollen  ihn  nicht  haben,  den  freien 
Deutschen  Rhein" — not  he,  nor  any  "Franzos" 
of  them  all,  should  annex  the  national  stream. 
By  his  protests,  his  claims,  his  coquetting  with 
a  Liberal  party  held  for  years  in  bondage,  and 
now  called  up  to  power,  this  doomed  son  of 
misfortune  put  his  shoulder  to  the  Bismarckian 
wheel,  and  sent  it  spimiing  along. 

But  he  was  desperate.  His  Mexican  Em- 
peror fell  under  the  bullets  of  a  native  de- 
tachment, and  the  French  troops  retired  at 
America's  bidding.  The  Convention  with 
Italy  vanished  before  Garibaldi's  invasion  of 
the  Papal  States;  Mentana  was  won  by  the 
chassepots  of  the  French;  and  in  the  coming 
contest  Napoleon  would  get  no  help  from 
Florence,  now  the  capital  of  a  kingdom  that 
looked  to  possess  Rome  at  the  nearest  chance. 
Paris,  the  city  of  revolutions,  had  been  trans- 
formed by  Hausmann  from  the  military  point 
of  view,  so  that  barricades  should  be  less  within 
the  people's  power,  and  cannon  might  enfilade 
the  wider  streets  along  their  whole  course. 
But  Paris  remained  the  city  of  pleasure,  cos- 
mopolitan, brilliant  by  day  and  by  night,  and 
increasingly  demoralized  as  the  Empire  moved 


150       THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 

to  its  fall.  In  1867  the  Exhibition  drew 
visitors  of  all  nations  and  the  Russian  Tsar  to 
a  marvellous  but  sinister  show  of  art,  inven- 
tion, and  luxury.  There  was  a  French  writer 
whose  fame  has  grown  since  his  death — Ernest 
Hello — most  remarkable  of  Catholic  thinkers 
in  a  frivolous  generation,  endowed  with  a  pro- 
phetic sense.  And  as  he  wandered  through 
these  courts  and  saw  the  crowds  thronging 
them,  he  asked  aloud,  "When  will  the  catas- 
trophe come?"    It  was  not  far  off. 

I  quote  my  own  recollections  by  way  of 
lightening  this  tragic  story  of  the  end  of  an 
age.  The  number  must  now  be  rapidly 
diminishing  of  those  that  looked  up  to  the 
Tuileries  when  it  was  the  home  of  Empire, 
shining  with  many  lights.  So  I  remember  it 
on  my  first  glimpse  of  Paris,  in  October  1868. 
A  second  time,  in  1873,  I  saw  its  windows; 
but  now  they  were  g-^ping  apertures,  the 
Commune  had  done  its  work  on  them.  And, 
later  still,  I  was  walking  with  M.  I'Abbe 
Dimnet,  well  known  since  to  English  readers, 
and  Auguste  Angellier,  the  illustrious  poet, 
over  the  very  site  made  into  a  garden  where 
this  ill-omened  palace  had  stood.  But  in  1868 
I  was  on  my  journey  as  a  young  student  to 
Rome ;  and  the  duty  of  getting  a  visa  for  my 


THE  CRISIS  OF  THE  CENTURY  151 

passport  took  me  to  the  Nunziatura  in  the 
Rue  St.-Dominique.  The  Nunzio  was  Monsi- 
gnor,  afterwards  Cardinal,  Chigi,  who  received 
travellers  on  such  an  errand  with  charming 
Italian  courtesy,  and  he  spoke  to  me  a  few 
gracious  words.  Thus  in  my  memories  of  life 
abroad  France  and  Rome  are  for  ever  blended. 
To  France  and  its  achievements,  heroic  or 
delightful,  I  am  a  debtor  beyond  any  reckon- 
ing of  mine.  To  Rome,  to  Italy,  what  words 
can  tell  how  much  I  owe,  still  adding  to  my 
obligation?  The  true  "Vita  Nuova,"  which 
holds  within  it  religion  and  culture,  which 
kindles  light  of  this  world  and  light  of  the 
world  to  come,  that  is  my  gain  from  those 
happy  shores.  And  with  Virgil  I  would 
salute  the  Mother  of  our  civilisation,  the 
teacher  of  what  is  best  for  mankind. 

"Salve,  magna  parens  frugum,  Saturnia  tellus, 
Magna  virum;  tibi  res  antiquae  laudis  et  artis 
Ingredior,  sanctos  ausus  recludere  fontes." 

It  is  one  thing  to  read  a  column  about 
"foreign  affairs"  in  the  Times  while  you  sit 
comfortably  in  your  London  club  or  the 
public  library,  another  to  be  living  in  Rome 
while  history  is  making  before  your  eyes  at 
an  GCcumenical  Council,  and  on  a  day  like 


152       THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 

September  20,  1870.  George  Eliot  has  written 
in  Middlemarch  some  meditative  lines  which 
bring  out  the  difference,  yet  leave  me  dis- 
satisfied. She  calls  Rome  "the  city  of  visible 
history,"  which  is  finely  said  and  true ;  adding 
a  httle  way  down  in  her  grand  manner,  "To 
those  who  have  looked  at  Rome  with  the 
quickening  power  of  a  knowledge  which 
breathes  a  growing  soul  into  all  historic 
shapes,  and  traces  out  the  suppressed  transi- 
tions which  unite  all  contrasts,  Rome  may 
still  be  the  spiritual  centre  and  interpreter  of 
the  world."  This,  although  likewise  true, 
reminds  one  of  the  German  professor  evolving 
out  of  his  own  consciousness  a  zoology  that 
might  be  found  alive  and  decidedly  in  action 
if  he  would  go  for  it  to  its  proper  habitat. 
Things  at  Rome  do  not  move  "in  funeral 
procession";  they  are  by  no  means  a  mere 
"oppressive  masquerade  of  ages."  The  city 
of  dead  Caesars  is  the  capital  of  Christendom. 
The  largest  numerically,  and  the  most  authori- 
tative in  fact,  of  religious  communions  which 
name  themselves  after  Christ,  is  Catholic  and 
Roman. 

To  an  English  girl,  such  as  Dorothea 
Brooke,  with  her  Puritanism  and  her  "brief 
narrow  experience,"  the  Eternal  City  would 


THE  CRISIS  OF  THE  CENTURY  153 

offer,  as  it  does  still  to  her  kind,  a  bewildering 
spectacle  of  old  and  new,  fragments  not  bound 
up  in  any  scheme  she  could  grasp.  But  on 
George  Eliot's  master,  Comte,  the  Church 
centred  in  Rome  exercised  an  influence  that 
shaped  his  entire  view  of  history.  To  un- 
happy Byron  Rome  was  "my  country,  city 
of  the  soul";  to  Newman  "it  is  the  first  of 
cities,  and  all  I  ever  saw  are  but  as  dust  (even 
dear  Oxford)  compared  with  its  majesty  and 
glory";  while  it  was  in  the  nave  of  St.  Peter's 
itself  that  there  dawned  on  Gladstone  the  first 
light  of  religion  as  divinely  intended  to  be 
Catholic  unity — in  other  words,  a  Visible 
Church,  one  and  undivided. 

Almost  without  design,  my  book  has 
reached  its  own  centre,  and  it  finds  us  in 
the  great  climacteric  year  of  the  nineteenth 
century,  1870,  looking  out  from  the  Seven 
Hills  on  a  situation  which  dominates  those 
hundred  and  twenty  years,  taken  by  me  as 
constituting  the  world's  last  age  and  closing 
where  the  War  of  1914  opens.  Three  great 
events  mark  it  in  the  Kalendar:  the  Vatican 
Council,  the  collapse  of  the  French  Empire, 
and  the  fall  of  the  Temporal  Power.  This 
was  a  conjunction  of  human  fortunes  such  as 
we  rarely  behold.     Each  event  has  brought 


154       THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 

in  its  train  effects,  and  will  bring  more,  of 
incalculable  consequence. 

The  Council  was  a  reply  to  Gallicans, 
Protestants,  and  unbelievers;  it  aimed  at 
undoing  the  evils  which  had  forced  the 
Congress  of  Westphalia  to  recognise  a  Chris- 
tendom rent  into  many  pieces.  But  there 
were  no  political  intentions  hidden  in  its 
decrees.  The  surrender  of  Napoleon  at  Sedan 
proved  as  decisive  as  the  execution  of 
Charles  I.  From  1649  onwards  England  was 
committed  beyond  reversal  to  government  by 
responsible  Ministers.  When  the  French  Em- 
peror gave  up  his  blunt  sword  to  Bismarck,  no 
choice  was  left  to  France  but  the  Third  Re- 
public. And  when  Rome  became  the  capital 
of  Italy,  the  Spiritual  Power,  still  throned  in 
the  Vatican,  entered  upon  a  phase  which  is 
one  of  partial  eclipse,  but  which  will,  as  I 
believe,  end  in  the  mighty  dawn  of  a  Catholic 
Restoration. 

Rome,  then,  is  an  ever-living  museum,  full 
of  "ancestral  images  and  trophies  gathered 
from  afar."  But  it  is  the  City  of  the  Nations, 
not  of  the  Tribe.  Keep  that  well  in  view,  my 
Reader,  for  on  it  I  mean  to  build  a  lofty 
argument  when  I  come  to  my  chief  concern^ 
the    reconciliation    of   the    Church    with    the 


THE  CRISIS  OF  THE  CENTURY  155 


People.  A  museum,  therefore,  is  old  Rome, 
but  likewise  a  university  not  to  be  paralleled; 
a  home  of  saints  and  hotbed  of  diplomacy;  a 
place  of  pilgrimage  where  you  may  expect 
to  see  or  hear  of  every  celebrated  character 
extant;  the  refuge  of  deposed  royalties  like 
the  Bourbons  of  Naples  and  Isabella  of  Spain ; 
more  cosmopolitan  than  London  or  Paris; 
and  sure  to  be  in  touch  with  whatever 
great  movement  is  passing  over  the  human 
stage,  so  far  as  it  can  make  any  difference  to 
the  Papacy.  My  own  time  there  as  a  student 
commenced  just  a  year  after  the  Battle  of 
Mentana  had  made  the  Vatican  Council 
possible  by  leaving  Pius  IX  master,  though 
under  French  protection,  in  Rome.  It  lasted 
until  July  1873,  when  the  Kulturhampf  was 
at  its  height.  Since  those  days  I  have  several 
times  renewed  my  fealty  at  the  Apostle's 
Tomb.  But  now  let  us  briefly  sum  up  the 
leading  particulars  of  what  was  tenned  in 
our  preceding  page  the  "climacteric"  or  cul- 
minating year,  1870. 

The  Vatican  Council  ushered  itself  in  with 
an  historical  procession,  December  8,  1869,  in 
St.  Peter's,  of  seven  hundred  and  fifty  bishops, 
gathered  from  the  four  winds.  It  reminded 
some  who  were  looking  on  of  the  opening  of  the 


156       THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 


States-General  at  Versailles  on  May  4,  1789; 
and  so  far  accurately,  that  men  whose  fate  or 
conduct  would  influence  generations  to  come 
were  moving  over  the  marble  pavement  to  the 
hall  of  their  future  debates  in  the  north  tran- 
sept. There  were  those  like  Antonelli,  repre- 
senting an  "Interim"  the  term  of  which  had 
almost  run  out.  There  were  others  like  Henry 
Edward  Manning,  whose  see  of  Westminster 
and  his  own  conversion  prophesied  of  a  time 
when  England  should  be  once  more  Catholic. 
There  were  French  bishops  with  Gallican  tra- 
ditions hovering  round  them, — Dupanloup  of 
Orleans,  who  was  to  behold  his  episcopal  city 
taken  twice  by  the  Bavarians;  and  Darboy 
of  Paris,  destined  to  be  shot  as  a  hostage  by 
the  Commune  in  the  May  of  1871,  while  his 
blood-stained  rochet  would  be  preserved  as  a 
relic  in  the  treasury  of  Notre  Dame.  There 
was  Mermillod  of  Geneva  with  Ledochowski 
of  Posen,  both  to  suifer  imprisonment  and 
exile  during  the  Kulturkampf.  There  was 
a  Cardinal  Bonaparte,  reminding  us  by  his 
features  of  the  Great  Captain,  but  in  every 
other  respect  singularly  not  resembling  him. 
There  was  the  soldierly  "bishop  from  the 
Turkish  frontier,"  Strossmayer,  whose  name 
flew  speedily  from  lip  to  lip  during  the  months 


THE  CRISIS  OF  THE  CENTURY  157. 

that  followed;  and  whose  life  of  ninety  years 
and  labours  on  behalf  of  his  brethren  have 
entitled  him  to  be  called  "the  greatest  son 
of  Croatia."  There  was  the  youngest  bishop 
of  all,  James  Gibbons — the  only  one  now 
surviving  of  those  seven  hundred  and  fifty. 
He  came  from  the  late  Confederate  States; 
and  he  is  now  Cardinal  Archbishop  of  Balti- 
more, a  pledge  by  his  position  as  well  as  by 
what  he  has  done,  perhaps  even  to  a  larger 
extent  than  Manning,  of  Catholic  expansion 
in  centuries  yet  to  be.  Last  and  little  re- 
garded, for  the  Roman  world  did  not  know 
him,  I  point  to  Joachim  Vincent  Pecci,  Car- 
dinal and  Bishop  of  Perugia.  This  was  to 
be  Leo  XIII,  "Lumen  in  CebIo,"  the  most 
brilliant  of  popes  since  Julius  II,  more  able 
than  Sixtus  V,  not  less  learned  than  Benedict 
XIV,  who  should  finish  the  Kulturkampf  by 
compelling  Prince  Bismarck  to  go  to  Canossa. 
And,  closing  the  procession,  we  saw  borne 
along  in  state  the  Pontiff  himself — Pius  IX 
— that  much-enduring  man  of  vicissitudes  and 
sorrows,  who  first  among  modern  Popes  held 
out  his  hand  to  Democracy.  He  was  called 
"Liberal"  and  "reforming";  and  the  ex- 
tremes of  both  ends  had  proved  too  strong, 
in  a  country  without  recent  political  training, 


158       THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 

for  the  true  Father  of  Italy.  But  if  the 
movement  of  1848,  which  his  example  set 
going,  had  failed,  he  at  least  could  not  be 
charged  with  its  failure.  Another  Pontiff 
might  succeed  where  Pius  IX  did  but  suffer 
loss  and  exile.  He  was  surely,  on  that  day 
of  December  1869,  the  most  pathetic  figure 
among  the  rulers  of  Europe. 

With  deliberations  in  the  Council  hall  I  am 
not  now  concerned.  The  final  voting  in  private 
session  took  place  on  July  13;  and  the  dogma 
of  Papal  Infallibility  waited  only  for  promul- 
gation. Rumours  of  the  diplomatic  quarrel 
between  France  and  Germany  filled  the  air. 
A  rupture  of  relations  was  in  sight;  when 
would  the  gage  be  thrown  down?  On  July  16 
a  group  of  us  English  students  were  kneeling 
in  front  of  St.  Peter's  shrine,  where  the  lamps 
burn  like  a  cluster  of  golden  bees.  Suddenly 
the  Bishop  of  Northampton  came  up  and 
whispered  to  us,  "The  French  have  declared 
war,  and  have  crossed  the  Rhine."  They  had 
not  crossed  the  Rhine;  they  would  never  in 
that  war  cross  it.  But  the  die  was  cast.  On 
July  18  the  Council  met  for  its  concluding 
act  in  the  crowded  Basilica,  lightning  flashing 
about  the  dome  and  thunder  pealing  overhead. 
The  bishops  shouted  "Placet,"  and  St.  Peter's 


THE  CRISIS  OF  THE  CENTURY  159 

rang  like  an  answering  choir.  Then  Pius  IX 
from  the  Apostolic  Chair  confirmed  and  pub- 
lished the  decrees.  Immense  applause  broke 
out;  men  shook  hands  with  one  another, 
exclaiming  "Credo,  credo";  and  the  vast 
audience  of  many  thousands  sang  the  "Te 
Deum"  as  with  a  single  mighty  voice. 

The  scene  was  unforgettable.  Cardinal 
Gibbons  has  written:  "The  definition  of  Papal 
Infallibility  did  more  to  rescue  the  Church 
from  the  dominion  of  the  State  than  anything 
in  modern  history."  If  that  be  so,  and  I  agree 
most  heartily  with  my  venerable  friend  ( as  his 
kindness  to  me  permits  me  to  call  him),  then 
I  say  that  the  moving  spectacle  of  July  18, 
1870,  was  a  long  step  in  advance  towards 
realising  the  ideals  of  Christian  Democracy. 

Next  day  war  was  declared  from  the 
Tuileries.  The  various  pretexts  put  forth 
on  both  sides  were  hollow,  and  sensible  men 
asked  Talleyrand's  question,  "Who  is  deceived 
here?"  It  was  a  battle  for  the  hegemony  of 
Europe,  or  Bismarck's  third  game  of  political 
chess.  He  contrived  with  singular  adroitness 
to  put  Napoleon  in  the  wrong.  Those  who 
wish  to  understand  what  is  the  conscience  of 
Prussian  diplomacy  will  do  well  to  study,  not 
only  the  record  of  the  Ems  telegram,  but  that 


160       THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 

of  the  so-called  French  proposal  to  annex  Bel- 
gium, which  was  "palmed"  (there  is  no  other 
word  for  it)  with  a  thimble-rigger's  dexterity 
on  the  innocent,  or  at  least  gullible,  Benedetti. 
The  triumvirate  in  Berlin — Bismarck,  Von 
Boon,  Von  Moltke — had  set  their  hearts  on 
beating  the  Emperor;  and  dismemberment 
of  France  would  assuredly  follow.  But  they 
can  never  have  wished  that  a  Republic  should 
be  set  up  in  Paris.  Or  did  they  fancy  that 
a  South  American  regime  in  the  neighbouring 
country  would  help  to  make  Germany  secure? 
Who  shall  say? 

The  truth  which  I  perceive  like  the  sun  at 
noon  is  that  Bismarck,  though  he  had  talked 
with  Lassalle,  the  Jew-Socialist  who  aspired 
to  succeed  the  Hohenzollerns,  and  must  have 
looked  into  Das  Kapital  by  Karl  Marx,  then 
living  in  a  room  in  Oxford  Street,  never  till 
his  dying  day  understood  that  he  was  just 
fighting  a  rearward  action;  or  that  the  poet 
Burns  with  his  "A  man's  a  man  for  a'  that," 
which  Freiligrath  had  rendered  into  sounding 
German,  *'Trotz  alledem,"  would  conquer  all 
the  kings  and  chancellors  in  the  better  days  of 
humanity.  Yes,  it  is  so;  and  I,  an  old  man 
verging  on  seventy,  declare  my  conviction 
that  the  great  simple  truth  which  shines  and 


THE  CRISIS  OF  THE  CENTURY  161 

sings  in  Burns,  in  Shelley — nay,  in  Victor 
Hugo,  and  which  as  regards  Les  Miserables 
is  applied  Christian  teaching,  will  prevail. 
"Hsec  est  spes  mea,  reposita  in  sinu  meo," 
"This  is  my  hope,  laid  up  in  my  heart." 

Then  began  for  France  the  "Terrible  Year." 
The  "thaw,"  coming  after  twenty  years  of  des- 
potism, had  ruined  the  army,  undermined  the 
nation,  and  was  a  bad  sign  of  long,  exhausting 
weakness  to  follow,  from  the  effects  of  which 
not  only  France,  but  Europe,  has  not  yet 
recovered.  England,  I  grieve  to  say — but 
we  were  all,  as  I  recollect,  in  the  same  con- 
demnation— England  was  rather  self-right- 
eous. France,  said  Dr.  Norman  Macleod, 
preaching  before  Queen  Victoria,  was  suffer- 
ing for  its  sins.  "O  Geordie,  jingling  Geor- 
die!  and  had  the  British  nation  no  sins  to  ex- 
piate?" When  the  first  fortnight  after  the 
declaration  of  war  was  ending,  those  symp- 
tomatic battles,  Weissenburg,  Worth,  and  For- 
bach,  told  us  that  the  House  of  Bonaparte 
(which  I  for  one  did  not  admire),  and  the 
country  which  had  suffered  its  rule  since  1851, 
must  pay  the  penalty  of  the  coup  d'etat,  what- 
ever sins  it  had  to  answer  for  in  addition. 

But  I  am  bound  to  set  on  record  one  fact, 
visible  and   palpable  to   us   in  Rome.     The 


162       THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 

>  « 

Italians  were  delighted  when  they  heard 
of  the  German  victories.  I  remember  our 
steward,  Ser  Angelo,  a  fine  face  and  figure 
worthy  of  Raphael's  pencil,  bursting  in  with 
the  news,  "By  God,  Signor,  they  are  beaten!" 
No  need  to  ask  who  were  beaten.  It  may 
not  be  unseasonable  to  recall  that  Italians 
have  long  memories;  and  that  from  the  ex- 
pedition of  Charles  VIII  in  1494  to  the 
campaigns  of  Napoleon  they  associated  the 
appearance  of  French  armies  south  of  the 
Alps  with  pillage  and  rapine.  I  love  France ; 
but  Italy  is  my  second,  my  spiritual  home; 
and  I  can  well  understand  Ser  Angelo.  God 
rest  him!    He  is  dead  these  many  years. 

France  fell  like  a  house  of  cards.  From 
the  first  defeats  until  Sedan,  which  threw  the 
Empire,  as  we  now  say,  on  the  scrap  heap, 
there  were  but  twenty-eight  days,  all  told. 
On  Sunday,  September  4 — a  beautiful  clear 
day  at  Tusculum  in  the  Latin  Hills,  near 
which  we  w^ere  living  at  our  country  house — 
the  Republic  was  proclaimed  at  the  Palais 
Bourbon.  It  might  not  have  survived  a 
week:  it  has  lasted  just  upon  forty-seven 
years — ^the  most  enduring  of  French  govern- 
ments since  1789.  Its  beautiful  and  appealing 
motto,    "Liberty,    Equality,    Fraternity,"    I 


THE  CRISIS  OF  THE  CENTURY  163 


have  often  stopped  to  consider  on  the  portals 
of  Notre  Dame.  No,  reader,  I  am  not  in- 
dulging in  Celtic  irony;  the  device  I  think 
superb;  but  oh,  let  the  Republic  now  and 
henceforth  prove  its  faith  by  its  works.  Else 
I  shall  be  saying  sadly,  with  Faust — 

"Die  Botschaft  hor'  ich  wohl,  mir  aber  fehlt  der  Glaube." 
("The  message  well  I  hear,  my  faith  alone  is  weak.") 

It  was  our  custom  to  go  up,  on  fine  morn- 
ings, to  the  Greek  theatre  at  Tusculum;  and  I 
was  reading  with  a  friend  the  Acharnians  of 
Aristophanes  or  some  similar  play  when  we 
heard  a  dull  thud  in  the  air  which  made  us 
attentive.  One  of  the  men  threw  himself  on 
the  ground ;  we  did  the  like,  and  we  rose  con- 
vinced that  towards  the  north  cannon  was  in 
use,  to  fight  or  to  hinder  an  Italian  advance. 
This  will  have  been  on  September  12  or  13. 
We  had  been  talking  in  Rome  with  soldiers 
of  the  Antibes  Legion  when  the  war  began. 
They  were  eager  to  join  the  fighting-line. 
They  did  so,  and  went  in  time  to  be  defeated. 
Now  the  Holy  Father  had  no  troops  but  his 
own.  After  much  deliberation  the  Italian 
.Cabinet  had  resolved  on  two  things:  it  would 
not  help  the  French  who  were  still  fighting; 
.and   it  would   occupy   Rome,   peaceably   by 


164       THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 

preference,  but  by  force  if  necessary.  The 
cannonading  which  we  heard  in  the  Greek 
theatre  at  Tusculum  was  due  to  papal  sappers 
blowing  up  a  bridge  over  the  Tiber. 

We  went  back  to  the  English  College  in 
the  Via  Monserrato,  and  an  exciting  week 
followed.  Rome  became,  by  proclamation  of 
General  Kanzler,  a  "place  d'armes."  We 
were  in  a  state  of  siege.  Italian  forces  marched 
up  to  within  a  short  distance  of  the  gates, 
commanded  by  General  Cadorna.  There  were 
these  points  to  be  settled,  by  diplomacy,  if 
possible:  would  Prussia  forbid  the  Italians 
to  enter  the  city?  And  if  not,  would  Pius 
IX  suffer  it  without  resistance?  Baron  Harry 
von  Arnim,  the  German  Minister,  went  to 
and  fro  between  the  city  and  the  camp  re- 
peatedly on  this  business.  Now  it  became 
evident  that  Bismarck  regarded  the  Vatican 
dogma  of  July  18  as  a  declaration  of  war 
against  the  Gei-man  Empire.  He  would  not 
lift  a  finger  to  save  the  Temporal  Power. 
But  in  accordance  with  his  role  of  "honest 
broker"  he  would  ingratiate  himself  with  both 
parties.  It  was  to  no  purpose.  Of  all  men 
Pius  IX  was  the  least  likely  to  give  up  a 
clear  principle.  He  answered,  in  effect,  "If 
Italy  wants  Rome  let  Italy  take  it."     He 


THE  CRISIS  OF  THE  CENTURY  165 

would  not  resist;  neither  would  he  open  the 
gates.  In  that  sense  he  wrote  late  on  the 
evening  of  September  19  to  General  Kanzler. 
The  Italian  army  must  make  their  assault. 

On  the  same  afternoon  the  Holy  Father 
drove  across  Rome  from  the  Vatican  to  the 
Scala  Santa,  hard  by  St.  John  Lateran,  and 
ascended  those  famous  stairs  on  his  knees. 
The  Piedmontese  troops  were  scarcely  a  mile 
outside  St.  John's  Gate.  Many  of  us  joined 
the  Pope  in  his  devotions.  He  gave  us  his 
blessing,  entered  his  carriage,  and  drove  back 
to  St.  Peter's.  Since  that  twilight  evening 
no  Pope  has  been  seen  in  the  city  of  Rome. 
A  seclusion  of  now  nearly  half  a  century  has 
shown  to  Europe  the  inflexible  conviction  of 
the  Holy  See  that  a  great  public  wrong  has 
been  done,  and  that  it  must  be  righted.  We 
are  learning,  with  Germans  for  our  masters, 
that  right  and  wrong  are  not  unmeaning 
words. 

I  have  noted  elsewhere  that  Ernest  Renan 
saw  Pius  IX  arriving  from  Gaeta,  on  April 
12,  1850,  in  that  same  Lateran  Square,  when 
the  second  period  of  his  reign,  unexampled  for 
its  length  in  papal  records,  began.  The  crowd, 
says  Renan,  was  frantic  with  enthusiasm.. 
Not  so  when  we  beheld  the  last  of  Pio  Nono's 


166       THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 

. . _ __J 

earthlj^  rule,  on  September  19,  1870.  The 
people  were  silent.  A  gi'eat  thing  was  coming 
to  pass.    The  Temporal  Power  was  dying. 

"And  so,"  if  I  may  quote  from  another 
volume  of  mine,  "in  the  clear  air  of  that 
September  the  twentieth,  we  saw  the  smoke 
of  the  cannonade  rise  like  an  exhalation  from 
Porta  Salara  round  to  Porta  Pia,  and  at  other 
gates  there  was  a  feigned  attack;  but  the  head- 
long General  Bixio  furiously  assailed  the  Porta 
San  Pancrazio,  while  his  grenades  struck  the 
windows  of  the  Vatican,  and  his  artillery 
accompanied  with  its  volleys  the  INIass  which 
Pius  IX  was  saying  in  his  private  chapel." 
The  assault  began  at  five  in  the  morning. 
"At  ten  o'clock  we  saw  the  white  flag  waving 
high  over  St.  Peter's  dome.  We  heard  afar 
off  from  our  College  roof  the  thunder  of  the 
captains  and  the  shouting,  as  through  the  shat- 
tered walls  of  Porta  Pia  streamed  a  mixed  ar- 
ray of  soldiers,  refugees,  camp-followers,  along 
the  street  afterwards  named  from  the  Twen- 
tieth of  September.  Earlj^  in  the  afternoon 
we  saw  Italian  standards  floating  from  the 
Capitol.  Rome  had  once  conquered  Italy. 
Now  Italy  had  conquered  Rome." 

Such  were  the  culminating  events  of  the 
year  1870.     The  treachery  and  surrender  of 


THE  CRISIS  OF  THE  CENTURY  167 

JMetz,  the  siege  of  Paris,  did  but  confirm  what 
had  been  done  at  Sedan  and  at  the  gates  of 
Rome.  The  nineteenth  century  was  turned 
into  a  new  path  where  Bismarck  led  the  way. 
But  the  last  enemy  was  England.  Ruin 
England,  then  the  world  was  Prussia's.  How 
should  this  be  gone  about? 


CHAPTER   VIII 


The  Bismarckian  Era 


HERE  is  a  text  from  Ruskin's  Fors 
Clavigera  (Letter  40),  dated  April 
1874,  which  sums  up  his  judgment  of  the 
Teuton  in  peace  and  in  conflict.  He  writes 
first  in  the  abstract:  "Blessing  is  only  for  the 
meek  and  the  merciful,  and  a  German  cannol; 
be  either;  he  does  not  understand  even  the 
meaning  of  the  words.  In  that  is  the  intense 
irreconcilable  difference  between  the  French 
and  German  natures.  A  Frenchman  is  selfish 
only  when  he  is  vile  and  lustful;  but  a 
German,  selfish  in  the  purest  states  of  virtue 
and  morality.  A  Frenchman  is  arrogant  only 
in  ignorance ;  but  no  quantity  of  learning  ever 
makes  a  German  modest."  Then,  after  an 
illustration  from  a  saying  of  Albert  Diirer, 
this  comment  follows:  "Accordingly,  when 
the  Germans  get  command  of  Lombardy,  they 
bombard  Venice,  steal  her  pictures  (which 
they  can't  understand  a  single  touch  of) ,  and 
entirely  ruin  the  country,  morally  and  physi- 

168 


THE  BISMARCKIAN  ERA     169 

cally,  leaving  behind  them  miseiy,  vice,  and 
intense  hatred  of  themselves,  wherever  their 
accursed  feet  have  trodden.  They  do  pre- 
cisely the  same  thing  by  France — crush  her, 
rob  her,  leave  her  in  misery  of  rage  and 
shame;  and  return  home,  smacking  their  lips, 
and  singing  Te  Deums." 

Shall  we  say  "this  witness  is  true,"  and 
pass  over  the  second  stage  of  the  Franco- 
German  War,  with  its  blockade  of  Paris  and 
the  furies  of  the  Commune,  directly  traceable 
to  that  awful  siege?  We  cannot  do  so  for 
several  reasons,  of  which  the  chief  is  that  the 
German  deficiency  in  meekness  and  mercy, 
coupled  with  lack  of  insight  into  the  French 
character,  led  them,  as  Ruskin  observes  else- 
where, to  dig  "a  moat  flooded  with  waters  of 
death  between  the  two  nations  for  a  century 
to  come."  Bismarck  would  not  loosen  his 
grip  on  the  stricken  land  until  he  had  secured 
''material  guarantees"  against  a  future  French 
counter-stroke.  Had  he  chosen,  he  might 
have  dealt  out  to  the  Third  Republic,  now  that 
Bonaparte  was  a  prisoner  at  Wilhelmshohe 
(significant  name,  ''William's  Height!"),  the 
same  measure  of  indulgence  by  which  he  had 
not  only  satisfied  Austria  but  subdued  it  to 
his  purpose.    For  in  this,  too,  the  French  are 


170       THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 

unlike  the  Germans — magnanimity  from  a  foe 
enchants  them,  binds  them  to  gratitude,  is 
written  on  their  hearts. 

But,  no,  even  while  he  knew  the  seedplot  of 
mischief  that  he  was  sowing,  the  Chancellor 
must  have  Alsace  with  Metz,  never  taken  but 
by  Bazaine's  treason,  and  a  great  parcel  of 
Lorraine.  The  French  cried,  "Not  a  foot  of 
our  soil,  not  a  stone  of  our  fortresses."  Jules 
Favre,  the  ingenuous  idealist,  pleaded  for 
consideration  with  tears;  Bismarck  dropped 
the  French  he  was  speaking,  and  growled  a 
refusal  in  High  Dutch.  Nor  was  he  so  free 
from  care  as  he  pretended.  All  through  the 
desultory  winter  campaign,  and  while  "the 
disciples  of  Kant  were  laying  siege  to  Paris 
with  a  stem  categorical  imperative,"  the  dread 
of  English  intervention  haunted  his  footsteps. 
If  England  moved,  by  diplomacy  or  by  naval 
action,  Russia  would  move  too.  Then  the 
integrity  and  independence  of  France  would 
be  saved. 

Why  did  not  England  move?  She  was 
still,  though  discredited  by  years  of  feeble  talk 
with  no  force  she  chose  to  employ  behind  it, 
what  Kinglake  held  her  to  be,  the  umpire 
of  Europe.  When  war  broke  on  Lord 
Clarendon's    "sky   without   a   cloud,"   public 


THE  BISMARCKIAN  ERA     171 

opinion  in  this  country,  misled  by  Bismarck's 
sleight  of  hand,  was  favourable  to  Germany, 
as  defending  herself  from  an  arrogant  invader. 
But  Sedan,  ^Metz,  and  the  pitiless  standing  of 
two  millions  of  people  inside  Paris,  wrought 
a  change.  It  was  felt  that  the  nation  had 
atoned  by  suffering  for  its  errors;  and  com- 
passion, which  was  awakened  by  many  sad 
stories  from  the  beleaguered  city,  called  for 
peace  on  equitable  terms.  One  thing  of 
moment  then,  and  decisive  of  our  action  in 
1914,  the  British  Cabinet  did:  it  formed  a 
"double  treaty  for  the  defence  of  Belgium." 
Farther  it  would  not  go.  And  after  some 
hesitation  the  damnosa  hereditas,  the  fatal 
legacy  of  Strasbourg  (dear  to  France  by  the 
noble  stand  it  made)  and  of  the  provinces, 
came  without  a  plebiscite  into  German  hands, 
January  28,  1871.  Von  Moltke  it  was,  if  I 
remember  right,  who  observed  that  it  would 
take  fifty  years  to  reconcile  the  annexed  people 
to  their  fate.  We  may  hope  now  that  not 
reconcilement  to  the  German  yoke,  illustrated 
by  such  deeds  as  gave  Zabern  notoriety,  but 
deliverance  from  it,  is  awaiting  them. 

Buskin,  I  was  well  pleased  to  find  long  ago, 
has  condemned  this  award  by  Bismarck  of 
a  perpetual  cause  of  suspicion  and  strife  to 


172       THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 

Germany,  with  a  prophet's  rigour.  And  he 
knew  quite  as  clearly  how  there  came  to  be  a 
Socialist  uprising  at  ^lontmartre,  with  cannon 
to  belch  forth  a  message,  grown  very  audible 
since  then  over  all  Europe,  but  most  terrifying 
when,  on  March  18,  1871,  it  proclaimed  the 
Commune,  or  municipal  self-government, 
which  was  to  supersede  the  State.  When  the 
Vendome  column  lay  dead,  so  to  speak,  tum- 
bled ignominiously  amid  cheers  from  its  base, 
the  legend  of  the  "Little  Corporal"  fell  with 
it.  The  Commune  renounced  all  French  vic- 
tories, and  declared  an  everlasting  Peace. 

It  was  rather  too  soon.  For,  as  Ruskin 
learnt  from  St.  Paul,  there  is  another  kind 
of  false  worship,  of  "Covetousness,  which  is 
idolatry";  and  he  calls  it  the  "Lady  of 
Competition  and  of  deadly  care;  idol  above 
the  altars  of  Ignoble  Victory,  builder  of 
streets  in  cities  of  Ignoble  Peace."  There- 
upon he  drives  his  lesson  home  in  words 
which,  however  violent,  I  must  set  down 
here,  if  I  would  bring  him  as  a  witness  at 
all  to  the  tendencies  which  have  made  for 
the  universal  War.  They  are  not  my  words, 
any  more  than  those  taken  by  me  from 
Milton  on  the  subject  of  king-killing.  But  as 
Milton,  though  a  regicide,  spoke  some  notable 


THE  BISMARCKIAN  ERA     173 

verities,  which  we  may  apply  to  our  time, 
in  like  manner  Ruskin,  while  he  thunders 
against  Capitalism,  founds  his  indictment  on 
a  world  of  facts — facts  no  less  deplorable  than 
ascertained.  This  is  what  he  wrote  in  July 
1871— 

''And  the  guilt j^  Thieves  of  Europe,  the 
real  sources  of  all  deadly  war  in  it,  are  the 
Capitalists — that  is  to  say,  people  who  live  by 
percentages  on  the  labour  of  others;  instead 
of  by  fair  wages  for  their  own.  The  Real 
War  in  Europe,  of  w^hich  this  fighting  in  Paris 
is  the  Inauguration,  is  between  these  and 
the  workman, — such  as  these  have  made  him. 
They  have  kept  him  poor,  ignorant,  and 
sinful,  that  they  might,  without  his  knowl- 
edge, gather  for  themselves  the  produce  of 
his  toil.  At  last,  a  dim  insight  into  the  fact 
of  this  dawns  on  him;  and  such  as  they  have 
made  of  him  he  meets  them,  and  will  meet" 
(Fors  Clavigera,  Letter  7,  vol.  ii,  p.  127). 

Socialism,  Communism,  Nihilism — what  are 
these  portents  that,  in  mad  confusion,  sent  up 
to  God  and  man  their  inarticulate  message, 
during  the  *'Red  Week"  of  May  1871,  by 
burning  as  much  as  they  could  of  Paris,  the 
"city  of  delight"  and  "joy  of  the  whole 
earth"?    They  burnt  the  Tuileries,  the  Hotel 


174.       THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 

de  Ville,  the  Cour  des  Comptes,  the  Rue  de 
Lille,  the  great  granaries;  to  Ernest  Renan, 
watching  from  Sevres,  it  appeared  that  the 
whole  place  was  settling  down  in  a  sulphurous 
conflagration.  I  have  observed  in  my  sketch 
of  this  amiable  dilettante  and  apostle  of  sweet 
unreason,  "He  would  have  rejoiced  at  a  con- 
quest of  Paris  by  Herder  and  Goethe;  in 
Bismarck  and  the  Red  Prince  he  could  dis- 
cern simply  the  Barbarians."  I  wrote  thus  in 
1905,  and  I  went  on  to  say,  *'He  was  unjust — 
pardonably  in  so  sudden  and  frightful  a  storm 
of  war;  but  those  who  have  lingered  among 
the  ruins  of  the  Castle  at  Heidelberg,  and 
who  remember  what  Louis  XIV  made  of  the 
Palatinate,  will  be  thankful  that  no  French 
soldiers  crossed  the  Rhine  in  1870." 

I  cannot  be  sorry  that  these  reflections  of 
mine  are  on  record  in  print.  They  give  strong 
asseveration  to  my  desire  of  seeing  justice 
done  to  the  finer  German  qualities ;  and  if  now 
I  must  confess  that  Renan's  view  is  borne  out 
by  what  we  see  daily  happening,  the  fault  lies 
with  those  who  do  such  things,  not  with  us 
who  refused  to  believe  them  possible.  Renan, 
like  Jules  Favre,  was  in  my  account  of  him  a 
"disconcerted  idealist."  St.-Cloud  was  a  heap 
of  smoking  ashes  under  the  deliberate  torch  lit 


THE  BISMARCKIAN  ERA     175 

by  German  hands;  Auteuil  was  one  ruin;  and 
Renan  said  bitterly,  "the  good  God  vanished 
to  make  room  for  an  inflexible  Sehaoth,  who 
could  only  be  touched  by  the  moral  delicacy 
of  Uhlans,  the  undoubted  excellence  of  Prus- 
sian bombshells."  Do  we  not  already,  in  these 
lamentations,  become  aware  with  Professor 
Cramb  that  Odin  is  the  German  leader,  their 
"good  old  God"?  The  Breton,  who  could 
never  quite  manage  to  get  free  of  Christianity, 
said,  "We  are  witnessing  an  Apocalypse." 
He  was,  and  so  are  we.  But  woe  to  the  seer 
of  Patmos  who  attempts  to  throw  his  visiops 
into  words!  By  their  very  truth  they  become 
incredible. 

These  Socialists,  Communists,  and  Nihilists 
who  did  all  they  could  to  make  Paris  like  unto 
Gomorrah  with  petrol  and  explosives,  and  who 
shot  the  hostages  in  cold  blood,  sixty-seven  or 
more  of  them,  with  Georges  Darboy,  Arch- 
bishop, representing  the  Catholic  Church,  were 
bent  on  burning  up  the  past — an  evil,  inhuman 
past,  as  they  conceived  of  it.  These  men  and 
women,  crying  "Neither  God  nor  INIaster," 
were  pitiless,  being  moved  by  a  strange  and 
insane  pity,  such  as  Bacon  terms,  "The  wild 
justice  of  revenge."  Many  were  to  the  letter 
lunatic,  others  dreamt  of  Robespierre  and  his 


176       THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 

Jacobin  Utopia;  not  a  few  had  been  made 
drunk  by  the  heady  eloquence  of  Bakunin,  the 
Russian,  who  flamed  through  the  West  like 
a  prairie  fire,  kindling  madness  wherever  he 
went. 

Of  all  that  Slav  propaganda,  so  passionate, 
so  irrational,  no  sharper  etching  has  ever 
been  bitten  out  than  by  Turgeniev  in  Smoke 
— most  aptly  named.  There  were  some  whom 
we  should  call  "Moderates,"  like  Alexander 
Herzen,  whose  Kolokol,  or  "Alarm-Bell," 
sounded  clearly,  yet  not  stormily,  a  warn- 
ing that  Imperial  Russia  should  have  laid 
to  heart.  I  have  always  felt  a  keener  interest 
in  Herzen  since  I  learnt  that,  when  I  was  a 
boy,  I  lived  not  very  far  from  him  in  the  part 
of  London  where  he  resided;  and  I  have  read 
more  than  once  the  account  of  him  in  Fraulein 
von  Meysenbug's  Memoiren  Einer  Idealistin. 
There  are  "Moderates"  even  among  Russians; 
and  Soloviev  was  neither  Anarchist  nor  Social- 
ist. But  the  crowd,  and  that  other  crowd  the 
newspapers,  will  always  run  after  a  big  drum 
loudly  beaten. 

Flaming  Paris,  then,  announced  on  the  part 
of  militant,  international  democracy  to  all 
whom  it  might  concern — and  Bismarck  was 
among  them — "Ecce  adsum,"  "Behold,  I  am 


THE  BISMARCKIAN  ERA     177 

"^ 


here;  you  must  reckon  with  me."  It  was 
alarming,  even  if  the  voice  were  that  of  a 
phantom;  how  much  more  if  "vox  populi, 
vox  Dei"?  Not  that  Bismarck,  much  less 
any  long-descended  king,  would  believe  it. 
Louis  Napoleon,  a  parvenu,  did;  and  per- 
haps in  this  article  alone  of  his  many 
proclamations  was  he  sincere.  But  exile, 
Chislehurst,  and  the  crypt  at  Famborough 
were  to  swallow  him  down.  A  Zulu  assegai 
was  to  put  an  end  to  his  direct  succession. 
The  heavy  sportsman  at  Gratz,  called  Henri 
Cinq,  or  Comte  de  Chambord,  had  a  momen- 
tary gleam  of  hope  in  1875  to  be  crowned  at 
Rheims,  which  he  was  advised  to  extinguish 
in  the  folds  of  his  white  flag.  The  Republic 
divided  Frenchmen  least;  and  it  was,  not  in 
profession  onlj^  but  by  heartfelt  assurance,  in 
love  with  peace. 

I  must  go  back  for  a  moment  to  my  ques- 
tion, why  in  1870,  when  France  was  agonising, 
did  not  England  move?  Well,  first,  there 
was  her  Majesty,  Queen  Victoria,  executing 
her  dead  Prince's  will,  listening  with  edifica- 
tion to  Dr.  Norman  Macleod  as  he  weighed 
France  in  the  balance  and  found  her  wanting. 
There  was  Mr.  Gladstone,  whose  love  of  peace, 
reinforced  by  that  of  Lord   Aberdeen,   had 


178       THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 


persuaded  the  Emperor  Nicholas  that  Britain 
would  not  under  any  circumstances  make 
war.  There  were  also  the  permanent  Cabinet 
Ministers,  Lack  of  Foresight  and  Want  of 
Preparation — Chinese  mandarins  of  highest 
rank.  But  Disraeli  thought — to  be  quite  accu- 
rate, he  said,  and  in  the  House  of  Commons — 
that  if  England  had  exerted  her  influence  in 
conjunction  with  Russia  she  might  have  pre- 
vented the  war;  at  least,  by  diplomatic  inter- 
vention, she  could  have  brought  it  to  a  speedier 
end.  Prince  Bismarck  had  been  fearing  what 
Disraeli  said  was  possible;  and  by  an  obvious 
but  skilful  demarche  he  gave  counsel  to  Russia 
that  now  would  be  the  time  to  "denounce" 
that  article  of  the  Treaty  of  1856  which  for- 
bade the  appearance  of  a  Russian  armed  fleet 
in  the  Black  Sea.  As  he  counselled  so  it  was 
done;  and  the  splendid  isolation  of  England 
rewarded  him. 

Three  times,  then,  Bismarck  played  for  high 
stakes  and  won.  He  got  his  great  indemnity 
of  five  milliards  from  France.  He  had  by 
soothing  speeches  persuaded  the  King  of 
Prussia  to  let  himself  be  named  German 
Emperor.  He  created  a  Parliament,  the 
Reichstag,  on  a  system  of  universal  suffrage, 
thereby  so  delighting  British  workmen  that 


THE  BISIMARCKIAN  ERA     179 

they  sent  him  an  address  of  thanks;  but  the 
suffrage  was  an  earthen  clod  thrust  down  the 
gullet  of  Cerberus,  and  Bismarck  laughed  at 
a  democracy  which  could  only  show  its  teeth. 
He  was  responsible  to  the  Emperor,  not  to 
the  Reichstag.  All  that  Germany  held  or 
owned  he  could,  in  emergency,  devote  to  his 
master's  purpose.  More  than  any  man  since 
Napoleon  I  he  wielded  absolute  power. 

But  I  have  not  said  or  insinuated,  whether 
in  regard  to  Bismarck  or  to  Frederick  II,  that 
great  men  are  digits  which  alone  give  a  value 
to  the  national  ciphers.  If  that  was  Carlyle's 
opinion  it  is  not  mine.  There  was,  there  is, 
a  Deutschland  with  its  deep  inspii-ations  and 
aspirations.  In  the  years  following  1870  we 
may  behold  it,  under  guidance  but  yet  with 
a  strength  of  its  own,  developing  on  all  sides, 
winning  commercial  and  industrial  triumphs, 
increasing  in  population  at  a  rapid  rate  while 
France  is  dwindling,  and  looking  round,  chiefly 
outside  Europe,  for  means  to  expand,  for  it 
had  begun  to  realise  Napoleon's  proverbial 
wisdom  that  an  Empire  must  have  "ships, 
commerce,  and  colonies."  Deutschland  the 
nation  felt  and  knew  this  more  intimately 
than  Bismarck,  whose  long  sight  did  not  pierce 
into  that  distant  scene.     He  had  striven  for 


180       THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 

the  hegemony  of  Europe  and  it  was  in  his 
hands.  To  keep  it  there  firmly  he  invented 
the  Alliance  with  Austria,  then  turned  it  by 
the  moral  conquest  of  Italy  into  the  Triplice; 
then  reinsured  at  Petersburg  against  Austria's 
defection.  To  win  over  France  was  beyond 
hope;  and  in  1875  he  thought  of  crushing  her 
by  a  new  invasion.  But  now  Queen  Victoria 
felt  alarmed.  She  appealed  to  Russia.  The 
war  did  not  come  off.  In  the  West  there  was 
a  long  truce,  never  more  than  what  in  German 
is  called  a  Waffenstillstand  or  armistice,  dur- 
ing some  thirty-eight  years.  But  in  the  next 
year,  1876,  the  Eastern  Question  burst  out 
again  with  volcanic  violence. 

Turkey,  during  a  respite  of  twenty  years 
after  the  Crimean  War,  had  reformed  none  of 
her  abuses  and  proceeded  on  the  old  course 
of  oppression,  plunder,  and  occasional  mas- 
sacre done  or  permitted  by  her  officials. 
There  was  a  Turkish  Debt,  largely  held  by 
Britons,  and  its  "financial  catastrophe"  caused 
an  alarm  which  a  mighty  massacre  in  the 
Balkans  would  assuredly  never  have  occa- 
sioned. But  the  Stock  Exchange  is  not 
sentimental.  In  1876,  to  quote  Lord  Morley, 
"fierce  revolt  against  intolerable  misrule  slowly 
blazed  up  in  Bosnia  and  Herzegovina;  and  a 


THE  BISMARCKIAN  ERA     181 

rising  in  Bulgaria,  not  dangerous  in  itself,  was 
put  down  by  Turkish  troops  despatched  from 
Constantinople,  with  deeds  described  by  the 
British  agent  [Mr.  Gahan],  who  investigated 
them  on  the  spot,  as  the  most  heinous  crimes 
that  had  stained  the  history  of  the  century. 
The  consuls  of  France  and  Germany  at 
Salonica  were  murdered  on  the  spot.  Servia 
and  Montenegro  were  in  arms.  Moved  by 
these  symptoms  of  a  vast  conflagration,  the 
three  Imperial  courts  of  Russia,  Austria,  and 
Germany  agreed  upon  an  instrument  imposing 
on  the  Turk  certain  reforms,  to  be  carried  out 
under  European  supervision.  To  this  instru- 
ment, known  as  the  Berlin  Memorandum, 
England,  along  with  France  and  Italy,  was 
invited  to  adhere  (May  13,  1876).  The  two 
other  Powers  assented;  but  Mr.  Disraeli  and 
his  Cabinet  refused." 

Such  are  the  facts;  and  when  we  consider 
them  we  cannot  but  feel  amazed.  Germans — 
the  same  that  had  ravaged  France  without 
remorse — act  as  reforming  humanitarians ;  but 
England,  in  the  Queen's  name,  says  no;  and 
the  Turks  feel  that  they  have  an  ally  who  will 
back  them  up  if  Russia  speaks  to  them  in  the 
gate — at  the  Sublime  Porte.  Of  course,  it 
was  not  England;  it  was  Disraeli  who  blotted 


182       THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 

out  the  Memorandum.  We  have  come  upon 
an  extraordinary  situation,  like  a  sentence  of 
which  the  lines  are  reversed  in  a  glass.  The 
Germans,  if  not  akin  {as  is  now  asserted)  to 
the  Turkish  race,  had  long  been  on  most 
friendly  terms  with  them.  General  von  Moltke 
had  served  in  the  Turkish  armies;  and  mere 
political  exigency  might  be  counted  on  to  se- 
cure the  help,  diplomatic  or  in  the  last  resource 
military,  of  Austria,  which  would  draw  after 
it  Germany,  at  Stamboul;  since  the  Russian 
designs  were  known  and  must  be  defeated  at 
every  cost.  Salonica  was  the  goal  of  Austrian 
ambition.  Yet  the  Central  Empires  were  in 
1876  for  coercing  the  Porte;  and  England 
stood  out.  The  mystery  can  be  solved  in  a 
word.    Disraeli  was  a  Jew. 

Far  be  it  from  me  to  imagine  that  every 
member  of  a  highly  gifted  and  much  suffering 
race  would  or  did  share  the  sentiments  of 
Lord  Beaconsfield  in  this  matter  of  Eastern 
Christians,  bowed  down  under  the  yoke  of  the 
Ottomans  for  so  many  miserable  generations. 
In  the  Life  of  Disraeli  will  be  found  evidence 
from  his  own  early  letters,  while  travelling 
on  the  great  tour  of  which  Tancred  and 
Contarini  Fleming  are  memorials,  that  he 
was  ready  to  join  Ali  Pasha  of  Jannina  in 


THE  BISMARCKIAN  ERA      183 

his  expedition  against  the  Albanians;  and  he 
writes:  "I  hate  the  Greeks  more  than  ever." 
Mr.  Gladstone  spoke  of  his  rival's  "Judaic 
feeling"  as  "consistent  and  conscientious"; 
and  "the  deepest,  now  that  his  wife  has 
gone,  in  his  whole  mind."  That  feeling  never 
changed.  And  it  led  the  Prime  Minister, 
with  a  Conservative  majority  behind  him,  to 
encourage  Turkey  in  rejecting  the  proposals 
of  the  Great  Powers;  to  challenge  Russia  at 
the  Lord  Mayor's  banquet  in  November  1876, 
by  talking  of  "a  second  or  third  campaign" 
which  England  could  afford ;  and  to  scandalise 
British  humanity  by  light  satire  about  the 
Bulgarian  massacres. 

It  did  more.  When  Russia  declared  hos- 
tilities, invaded  the  Turk's  dominions,  fought 
the  siege  of  Plevna  with  enormous  losses,  won 
it  with  Rumanian  help,  and  advanced  to 
Adrianople,  the  action  of  Disraeli  saved 
Prince  Bismarck  from  one  of  the  most  diffi- 
cult situations  in  which  he  had  ever  been 
placed.  Despite  Gladstone's  pamphlets  and 
speeches,  Disraeli  was  skilful  enough  to 
awaken  in  the  people  their  old  Crimean 
mood.  They  gave  no  thought  to  the  Pre- 
mier's "Judaic  feeling";  Ihey  were  alarmed 
for  India.     So  the  British  fleet  passed  the 


184       THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 

Dardanelles.  Then  the  Russian  army  drew 
thh'ty  miles  nearer  to  Constantinople;  the 
Treaty  of  San  Stefano  was  signed  at  the 
beginning  of  March  1878;  and  on  June  13 
the  Congress  of  Berlin  opened  with  Prince 
Bismarck  as  its  President.  Neither  Germany 
nor  Austria  had  fired  a  shot.  The  Tsar  was 
not  to  enter  Stamboul,  and  the  Sultan  was  not 
to  leave  it,  thanks  to  the  "old  Jew,"  as  Bis- 
marck, in  his  Junker  style,  but  with  sincere 
admiration,  termed  Lord  Beaconsfield.  This 
was  the  "Peace  with  Honour"  to  which  we 
owe  a  series  of  Balkan  Wars  and,  by  its  en- 
trusting Bosnia  and  Herzegovina  to  Austrian 
keeping,  the  Great  War  itself. 

Gladstone  said  truly  that  the  voice  of  Eng- 
land spoke  at  the  Congress  of  Berlin,  not  as 
Canning,  Palmerston,  or  Russell  would  have 
spoken,  but  "in  the  tones  of  IMetternich." 
That  is  why  Bismarck  praised  Beaconsfield. 
Liberal  England  had  joined  the  Reaction. 
And  yet  the  Liberator  Tsar  was  a  menacing 
"Divine  figure  from  the  north."  By  his 
efforts  Rumania,  Serbia,  Montenegro  had 
gained  their  independence.  One  section  of 
Bulgaria  was  virtually  free;  the  other,  fantas- 
tically named  by  Disraeli  "Eastern  Rumelia," 
had  Home  Rule  given  it,  and  would  join  itself 


THE  BISMARCKIAX  ERA     185 


to  Sofia  within  seven  years,  when  the  Balkans 
which  divided  them  "went  down  with  a  shout." 
The  detested  Greeks  were  told  to  bargain  with 
the  Turks;  and  not  until  1881  did  they  get  a 
few  scraps  of  additional  territory.    Macedonia 
was  left  to  its  fate,  Armenia  to  be  murdered 
by  slow  degrees.     The  integrity  of  the  Otto- 
man Empire  had  disappeared.   Lord  Beacons- 
field,  its  staunch  protector,   himself  dealt  it 
fearful  blows  by  the  purchase  of  the   Suez 
Canal  shares  in  1875— which  could  not  fail  to 
bring  in  its  wake  the  occupation  and  annexa- 
tion of  Egypt — and  by  the  Cyprus  convention, 
giving   us,    as   he   announced   exultingly,    "a 
strong  place  of  arms"  in  the  Levant.     When 
the  elections  of  1880  swept  him  from  power, 
the  last  English  defence  of  Turkey  had  seen 
its  day. 

u  ^^„^""^ay'  March  13,  1881,  near  those 
*'Ides"  fatal  to  Csesar,  the  Emperor  Alex- 
ander II  was  shattered  to  death  by  Nihilist 
conspirators  in  Petersburg.  I  have  always 
considered  this  gloomy  date  as  marking  the 
advent  of  a  wide  revolutionary  movement, 
taking  varied  and  discordant  forms,  mild  or 
sanguinary,  economic  or  in  a  more  extensive 
meaning  social,  which  overstepped  the  boun- 
daries of  States  and  gathered  up  the  spoils  of 


186       THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 

many  Utopias.  The  "International"  and  the 
"Commune"  served  as  preludes  to  Social 
Democracy.  In  the  West,  and  above  all  in 
the  German  Fatherland,  constituted  authori- 
ties were  face  to  face  with  a  sort  of  Religion, 
determined  to  establish  its  heaven  on  earth. 
The  assault  on  property,  as  now  held  and 
heritable,  became  violent  all  along  the  line. 
It  voted  its  way  into  the  Reichstag.  It 
affected  parliamentary  groups  everywhere. 
And  its  indirect  consequences,  according  to 
the  law  of  such  movements,  were  as  multi- 
plied as  contradictory.  Among  them  we  have 
to  record  the  termination  of  the  Kulturkampf 
and  Prince  Bismarck's  journey  to  Canossa. 

The  conflict  with  Rome  which  he  began 
with  his  May  Laws  in  1873  illustrates,  hke  so 
many  other  mistakes  of  secular  princes  in  this 
department,  the  wisdom  of  that  old  Greek 
saying,  "Let  alone  Kamarina,  for  'tis  best 
let  alone."  In  more  modern  language,  it  is 
dangerous  to  meddle  with  great  historical 
institutions  firmly  planted,  as  is  the  Catholic 
Church,  in  the  habits  and  aff'ections  of  multi- 
tudes. The  strokes  which  Minister  Falk  and 
his  officials  showered  freely  fell,  as  might  be 
expected,  even  on  the  Rhenish  Provinces,  and 
of  course  on  Poland  most  of  all.     Bismarck 


THE  BISMARCKIAN  ERA      187 

was  charged  with  attempting  to  "murder  the 
soul  of  a  nation."  The  Jesuits  were  expelled; 
and  other  religious  orders  of  men  and  women 
shared  their  fate.  Bishops  and  priests  were 
thrown  into  prison.  Diplomatic  relations  with 
Rome  were  broken  off. 

I  could  never  find — and  I  have  had  oppor- 
tunities more  than  the  average — that  there 
were  solid  grounds  for  Prince  Bismarck's 
suspicions  of  a  Vatican  plot  against  the 
New  Empire.  The  Council  of  1870  was 
convoked  with  entirely  other  objects  than 
to  prevent  the  birth  of  a  German  Empire 
which  few  anticipated.  Certainly,  no  man 
need  have  been  surprised  if  Pius  IX  felt 
grieved  at  Austria's  defeat  and  the  downfall 
of  France.  These  were  the  leading  Catholic 
Powers.  But  what  could  a  Pontiff,  who  was 
now  secluded  in  his  own  palace,  do  to  set  them 
up  again?  During  the  War  of  1870,  as  I  have 
already  hinted,  feeling  in  high  Roman  circles, 
which  had  never  been  favourable  to  Louis 
Bonaparte,  was  one  of  satisfaction  that  this 
double-tongued  politician  should  be  getting 
his  deserts.  Prince  Bismarck  or  Professor 
Virchow  talked  of  "Kultur";  but,  however 
we  take  the  word,  what  mischief  to  Kultur 
did  belief  in  the  papal  dogma  bring  with  it? 


188       THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 

No;  the  real  ground  was  that  which  Cardinal 
Gibbons  has  indicated:  "The  definition  of 
Papal  Infallibility  did  more  to  rescue  the 
Church  from  the  dominion  of  the  State 
than  anything  in  modern  history."  And 
it  did  so  by  declaring  that  the  Church  is  a 
sovereign  society,  complete  in  itself,  having 
jurisdiction  in  its  own  province  everywhere 
over  its  members.  Bismarck  wanted  a  mere 
State  Church;  the  Council  showed  him  one 
that  was  oecumenical.  His  legislation  has 
been  curiously  described  as  a  reply  to  "the 
papal  edict  enjoining  the  Bishops  of  Germany 
to  set  their  duty  to  the  Church  above  obe- 
dience to  the  State."  This  "papal  edict" 
reads  like  a  well-known  verse  of  the  Acts  of 
the  Apostles;  Pius  IX  was  not  interfering 
in  politics  any  more  than  St.  Peter  and  his 
brethren  were. 

But  the  Kulturkampf  failed  because  it  led 
to  the  banding  together  of  German  Catholics 
in  a  Centre  Party,  which  soon  developed 
strength,  and  in  time  grew  to  be  the  most 
powerful  in  the  Reichstag.  It  may  be  true 
that  parties  in  the  Fatherland  compared  with 
the  State,  and  especially  with  Prussia,  have 
been  generally  mere  shadows.  For  something 
like  forty  years  the  Centre  Party  was  a  reality. 


THE  BISMARCKIAN  ERA     189 


It  is  not  Catholic  now  in  aim  or  object;  and 
its  restraining  influence  on   Prussia  can  no 
more  be  found.    But  in  the  last  twenty  years 
of   the   nineteenth   century   it   boasted,    with 
justice  often,  that  "Catholic  was  trumps."    It 
opposed  the  principles  of  an  unchristian  Social 
Democracy  at  all  times.     Bismarck  felt  that 
he  needed  it;  and  to  secure  its  help  he  turned 
to  Rome.  There  he  found  reigning  Leo  XIII. 
We  saw  the  future  Pope  moving  unregarded 
in  the  long  episcopal  procession  through  St. 
Peter's  on  December  8,  1869.    He  was  elected 
amid  great  expectations  on  February  20,  1878; 
and  his  "golden  decennium"  followed.    Living 
retired  from  courts  in  the  Umbrian  city  of 
Perugia  for  thirty-two  years,  Cardinal  Pecci 
took  a  philosophic  view  of  the  world's  agita- 
tions.    He  did  not  agree  with  the  political 
measures  of  Antonelli;  but  his  attitude  was 
always  that  of  conciliation,  not  of  resentment 
and  refusal  to  consider  terms  of  agreement, 
wherever  principle  allowed.    A  scholar  and  a 
gentleman,  of  good  Middle  Italian  stock,  very 
firm   but    also    very   reasonable,    Leo    XIII 
blended  the  devout  ecclesiastic  with  the  con- 
summate statesman.     His  mind,  fashioned  in 
the  school  of  St.  Thomas  Aquinas,  had  won  the 
Aristotelian  balance;  it  was  of  a  judicial  cast; 


190       THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 

and  his  exceedingly  beautiful  Latin  prose 
gives  delight  to  those  who  know  by  experience 
how  difficult  is  the  art  in  which  he  shone.  He 
had  looked  into  economic  problems;  he  be- 
lieved that  harmony  might  by  wise  handling  be 
created  between  Labour  and  Capital.  He  took 
no  pleasure  in  seeing  the  Church  isolated  in 
the  midst  of  modern  society.  He  was  a  Guelf, 
not  a  Ghibelline;  but  when  the  Ghibelline 
Chancellor  held  out  a  rude  Prussian  hand 
Leo  XIII  clasped  it  in  his  own. 

I  cannot  refrain  from  setting  down  here 
some  words  attributed  to  J.  H.  Newman, 
called  into  the  Sacred  College  by  this  enlight- 
ened ruler:  "In  the  successor  of  Pius,"  he  is 
reported  to  have  said,  "I  recognise  a  depth  of 
thought,  a  tenderness  of  heart,  a  winning  sim- 
plicity, and  a  power  answering  to  the  name  of 
Leo,  which  prevent  me  from  lamenting  that 
Pius  is  no  longer  here." 

Bismarck  went  by  easy  stages  to  Canossa, 
getting  there,  to  continue  the  allusion,  in  1886. 
The  Centre  Party  joined  forces  with  him 
against  Socialism;  made  him  independent  of 
Herr  Lasker  who  led  the  National  Liberals; 
and  on  a  celebrated  occasion  determined  the 
passing  of  much  increased  Army  estimates. 
The  Church  flourished;  but  the  Jesuits  were 


THE  BISMARCKIAN  ERA     191 

not  recalled.  Whilst  I  am  writing  these  lines 
the  intelligence  comes  that  their  exile  as  an 
Order  will  soon  be  at  an  end.  Thej'^  will  return, 
but  not  to  the  Germany  of  1873,  triumphant 
in  many  battles,  rich  in  the  ransom  of  France, 
the  arbiter  of  Europe,  embarking  on  a  career 
of  unexampled  prosperity.  The  Emperor 
William  died  on  March  9,  1888.  His  son, 
Frederick  the  Noble,  whom  we  Londoners 
saw  driving  through  our  streets  to  his  wedding 
in  1858,  followed  him,  after  a  reign  of  three 
months,  to  the  grave.  William  II  was  pro- 
claimed; and  Prince  Bismarck,  who  had  lived 
too  long,  would  soon  be  saying,  "I  cannot 
tack  on  to  my  career  the  failures  of  arbitrary 
and  inexperienced  self-conceit,  for  which  I 
should  be  held  responsible."  Nevertheless,  it 
has  been  remarked  that  the  picture  of  Prussian 
autocracy  in  the  later  days  of  the  Chancellor, 
after  1885,  is  a  sombre  one.  "It  is  a  pic- 
ture," writes  Professor  ISIorgan,  "of  suspicion, 
treachery,  vacillation,  and  calumny  in  high 
places,  which  remind  one  of  nothing  so  much 
as  the  Court  of  the  later  Bourbons.  It  is  a 
regime  of  violence  abroad  and  dissensions  at 
home."  And  so  the  great  man  passed  from 
power. 


CHAPTER   IX 


Enter  Kaiser  Wilhelm 


WILLIAM  II  began  his  reign  on  June 
15,  1888.  He  was  the  eldest  son  of 
Frederick  III  and  his  wife,  Princess 
Royal  of  the  United  Kingdom,  herself  the 
eldest  child  of  Queen  Victoria.  This  pedigree, 
which  gave  him  Prussia,  with  the  title  of 
German  Emperor  thrown  in,  entitled  William, 
so  he  seems  frequently  to  have  argued,  likewise 
to  the  succession  of  the  British  Empire,  claimed 
by  Edward  VII,  and  recognised  by  the  four 
hundred  millions  of  his  subjects.  I  mention 
this  somewhat  bizarre  delusion,  not  for  its  own 
sake,  but  as  raying  out  light  on  the  character 
of  one  who  combined  in  himself  many  of  the 
traits  which  indicate  an  unbalanced,  highly 
fantastic  and  self-centred  mind.  The  Kaiser's 
pretensions  were  unbounded  from  the  first. 
Hence  he  was  the  very  man  to  take  up  ideas 
from  which  Prince  Bismarck,  with  his  long 
experience  of  European  politics,  would  have 
recoiled.    Bismarck  aimed  consciously  neither 

192 


ENTER  KAISER  WILHELM   193 


at  a  World-Empire  to  be  won  by  German  ef- 
fort, nor  at  the  destruction,  much  as  he  in- 
trigued for  the  enfeeblement,  of  British  power. 
But  these  were  to  become,  by  intense  brooding 
over  possibihties  and  chances,  at  length  the 
master-thoughts,  as  end  and  means,  in  the 
morbid  imagination  of  the  young  sovereign 
who  now,  "dropping  the  pilot,"  made  a  "wild 
dedication"  of  himself 

"To  unpath'd  waters,  undream'd  shores;  most  certain 
To  miseries  enough." 

Heaven  pity  us  all!  There  is  no  language, 
not  Shakespeare's  own,  adequate  to  the 
"mighty  stage  and  hero  least  heroic,"  on  which 
and  by  whom  this  Tamburlaine  extravaganza 
was  to  be  acted.  Sober  words  revolt  us  as  too 
chill,  too  frostbitten,  for  the  description  of 
Sahara  whirlwinds  and  fiery  simoons  of  death 
in  which  Europe  has  been,  by  his  signing  of  a 
single  telegram  on  July  31,  1914,  carried  vio- 
lently forward  into  a  new  age,  scarcely  yet 
conceivable.  Is  the  Kaiser  greatest  of  men 
ever  inflicted  on  humanity  by  the  German  god? 
Or  not  great  in  any  way,  more  than  the  wooden 
figure-head  in  front  of  the  ship,  borne  along 
by  that  which  it  seems  to  be  guiding?  A 
figure-head,  yes,  but  very  much  alive,  and  to 
such  extent  answerable  for  the  course.     But 


194       THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 

neither  a  Frederick  II  nor  a  Bismarck.  We 
must  seek  deeper  causes  to  save  us  from  scorn- 
ing the  nations  that  this  second-rate  mouther 
of  fustian  could  "tarre  on"  to  smite  and  anni- 
hilate one  another.  I  see  such  causes,  and  I 
name  them  Autocracy  and  Democracy,  Pagan 
State-worship  and  Christian  liberty.  But 
Wilhelm  counts  also. 

Critics  have  been  tempted  to  set  the  Kaiser 
down  as  the  ape  of  genius,  imitative  and  futile 
— which  judgment  we  must  allow  in  the  prov- 
ince of  art.  To  deny  him  real  powers  of 
mind,  with  energy  to  use  them,  would  be  a 
slur  upon  ourselves  and  all  Europe.  For  he, 
though  seeming  now  silent  and  still  as  an 
exhausted  volcano,  did  during  twenty-five 
years  make  upon  us  the  impression  of  a  demo- 
nic force,  not  to  be  tired  out.  What  was  he, 
then?  Identifying  himself  with  Prussia — but 
also  Prussia  with  Hohenzollern — I  liken  him 
to  a  first-rate  general  advertiser,  travelling 
agent,  and  chief  controller,  of  the  firm  called 
"Deutschland,"  adding  with  Hoffmann  von 
Fallersleben,  "iiber  Alles";  that  is  to  say, 
which  defies  competition,  and  is  the  leading 
European  establisliment,  with  branches  in 
Vienna  and  Stamboul.  In  more  than  one 
sense,  Wilhelm  was  the  "Reise-Kaiser."     He 


ENTER  KAISER  WILHELM   195 


was  a  poster  of  the  sea  and  land,  with  a  ready 
tongue,  a  journahst's  gift  of  picking  up  knowl- 
edge, and  of  mistaking  its  true  significance, 
a   picturesque   outward   semblance,   made   or 
marred  by  three  hundred  uniforms,  a  persever- 
ing insolence  which  could  be  put  down  by  no 
rebuffs  from  any  gentleman,  and  that  priceless 
quality  in  days  when  "copy"  rules  the  world, 
an  histrionic  make-up,  producing  the  unex- 
pected,   from   an    interview   with    the   Daily 
Telegraph  to  a  Flying  Dutchman's  descent  at 
Tangier.     Tell  me  that  such  a  living  kaleido- 
scope has  no  genius!     Until  the  War,  with 
its  dun  pall  of  smoke,  hid  and  partly  smothered 
him,  this  man,  who  is,  and  perhaps  will  be, 
the  last  of  the  Hohenzollerns  on  the  throne 
of  Prussia,  was  every  inch  a  king.    An  auto- 
crat, mind  you,  strong  enough  to  let  Bismarck 
go    down    the    companion-ladder,    while    he 
would  govern  henceforth  by  mediocrities — the 
Caprivis,  Biilows,  and  Bethmanns,  who  took 
his  orders  with  lackeylike  deference.    In  short, 
Kaiser  Wilhelm  was  a  character  and  a  force, 
so  long  as  he  was  anything.  Now  he  is  no  more. 
Do  I  then  suppose  that  he  directed  Ger- 
many as  a  god  from  the  machine?  He  thought 
so ;  but  the  idea  which  lay  hid  in  the  Teutonic 
soul  t\^as  greater  than  Wilhehn,  greater  than 


196       THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 

.1 

Bismarck  had  been ;  and  it  shaped  the  national 
pohcy.  That  idea  was  Pan-Germanism.  We 
have  come  into  a  cloudland  where  Enghshmen 
do  not  love  to  dwell.  Yet  surely  it  is  true 
that  the  dim  workings  of  an  instinct  in  a  whole 
people  control  them  to  wide  issues,  known  but 
in  part  to  one  or  another,  though  conspiring 
to  definite  ends.  The  Germans  suffer  gladly 
autocrat,  bureaucrat,  aristocrat.  They  are 
servile  at  home,  ambitious  and  high-soaring 
when  they  project  themselves  in  fancy  abroad. 
They  do  not  believe  in  our  freedom,  or  want 
it,  or  even  respect  it.  But  since  the  day  of 
Rossbach,  since  Leipzig,  Waterloo,  Sadowa, 
Sedan,  they  were  growing  into  a  deep  sense  of 
patriotism,  which  in  1890  had  become  aware 
of  its  own  capabilities  between  anaemic  France, 
hysterical  Russia,  impoverished  Italy,  with 
England  some  way  off — the  Midgard  snake 
coiled  up  in  its  ocean-nest,  or  uncoiling  to 
encircle  the  globe.  Germany  felt,  and  the 
War  has  largely  justified  her  feeling,  that 
unless  England  came  in  she  could  break  the 
Continental  Powers.  This  consideration  deter- 
mined her  programme.  England  must  be 
thrown  into  a  magic  sleep,  and  the  magician 
was  Kaiser  Wilhelm,  favourite  grandson  of 
the  venerable,  much-loved  Queen  Victoria. 


ENTER  KAISER  WILHELM   197 

But  what  of  German  Socialism?  Here  it 
was  that  the  Kaiser  began  his  apprenticeship 
to  the  trade  of  autocracy.  Louis  Napoleon, 
poor  dreamer,  had  wished  that  all  benevolent 
schemes  to  help  the  toiling  millions  should  be 
his  design  and  doing.  He  could  but  create 
a  restless  proletariat.  In  Germany  to  make 
of  Socialism  a  State  affair  was  much  easier, 
at  least  in  appearance.  Bismarck's  repressive 
laws  in  1878  had  failed  to  get  rid  of  the  Social 
Democrats.  He  destroyed  their  propaganda; 
but  he  could  not  exclude  them  from  the 
Reichstag,  and  their  influence  grew.  The 
young  Emperor,  as  Gertioide  Atherton  brings 
out  well  in  her  Riders  of  Kings,  entered  into 
close  alliance  with  Capital  and  its  overlords 
on  both  sides  of  the  Atlantic.  But  he  wished 
his  Govermiient  to  be  a  national  relief  com- 
mittee, just  as  the  Deutsche  Bank  was  to  set 
other  banks  an  example  of  fostering  enterprise 
wherever  Germans  could  peacefully  penetrate 
foreign  markets.  The  autocrat,  if  he  is  wise, 
will  do  all  whatsoever  Socialism  would  like  to 
do  without  him.  He  will  give  his  subjects 
everything  that  is  good  for  them;  but  they 
must  feed  out  of  his  hand.  Many  among  us, 
not  seeing  that  freedom  is  a  spiritual  endow- 
ment, while  food,  shelter,  clothing,  housing. 


198       THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 

police,  old-age  pensions,  are  in  themselves  but 
material  conditions,  would  joyfully  accept  the 
Kaiser's  boon.  And  perhaps  Carlyle  has  en- 
couraged them.  But  I  can  see  him  flinging 
that  mess  of  red  pottage  into  Annan  Water. 

It  was,  indeed,  painfully  clear  from  the 
experience  of  years,  that  votes  had  somehow 
not  succeeded  in  multiplying  loaves;  that  the 
just  claims  of  Labour  to  a  reasonable  subsis- 
tence-wage and  all  implied  therein  still  de- 
manded, but  could  not  get,  satisfaction.  The 
Liberal  movement  fell  into  discredit.  Votes 
plus  laissez  faire,  ending  in  monopolies  among 
employers  and  murderous  competition  among 
the  employed,  were  brought  under  the  raking 
fire  of  Carlyle  and  Ruskin,  whose  destructive 
logic,  forming  the  prolegomena  to  all  future 
schemes  of  social  reconstruction,  will  give 
English  readers,  in  a  style  most  piercing  and 
most  relentless,  a  sufficient  idea  of  the  line 
taken  at  home  and  abroad,  by  those  who 
believed  in  the  divine  right  of  the  labourer  to 
his  hire,  and  that  a  fair  one.  The  Californian 
economist,  Henry  George,  gave  world-wide 
currency  to  the  panacea  known  as  the  Single 
Tax;  but  in  doing-  so  he  asserted  that  the 
citizens  of  the  United  States  who  had  votes 
without  capital  were  as  much  excluded  from 


ENTER  KAISER  WILHELM   199 

a  share  in  its  Govermiient  as  negro  slaves  had 
been  previous  to  emancipation.  That  a  political 
system  called  Liberalism  should  be  in  jeopardy 
was,  perhaps,  a  sign  of  closer  touch  with  fact 
and  realities.  But  Liberty  itself  received  a 
shock,  and  benevolent  Csesarism  gained  thereby. 
The  largest  application  of  autocracy  to 
economics  of  the  State  which  had  been  prac- 
tised since  the  time  of  Diocletian,  was  now 
to  be  tried.  That  is  the  distinctive  character 
of  modern  Germany.  The  nation  was  to  be 
not  only  an  army,  but  in  many  respects  a 
phalanstery.  Sparta  translated  to  the  Spree 
should  be  rigidly  logical,  except  in  one  par- 
ticular— great  private  fortunes  might  be  won 
or  increased,  so  long  as  the  Kaiser's  rule  got 
the  benefit  of  them,  present  and  prospective. 
The  scheme,  then,  was  autocracy  tempered  by 
monopolies;  in  brief,  an  economic  Junkerdom 
with  the  Emperor  at  its  head.  I  beg  the 
reader's  very  careful  attention  to  these  pheno- 
mena. Had  they  not  been  created,  the  War 
of  1914  would  never  have  taken  place.  By 
them  were  transferred  the  whole  resources  of 
the  countiy  into  Imperial  hands,  giving  to  the 
proclamations  of  the  War  Lord  an  apparently 
inexhaustible  fund  on  which  he  could  draw  in 
time  of  need. 


200       THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 

No  other  country  had  an  armed  and  mihtant 
commerce,  or  so  much  as  thought  of  it.  To 
all  others  the  conception  of  economics  was  in 
the  main  private  or  individual.  The  State 
could  tax  but  not  organise  trade;  and  to 
make  it  a  weapon  of  war  was  not  dreamt  of 
in  their  philosophy.  Least  of  any  did  Free 
Trade  England  glance  that  way.  Quite  the 
opposite.  Her  manufactures,  minerals,  trans- 
port services,  exchanges,  syndicates,  news- 
papers, could  be  bought  and  sold  in  the  open 
market  by  German,  Jew,  Yankee.  The  whole 
was  a  public  auction.  Any  one  might  nat- 
uralise himself,  yet  keep  his  birthright  intact. 
The  honours  of  Parliament  were  open,  on  this 
easy  condition,  to  all  men.  Imports  and  ex- 
ports alike  were  free.  Britain  had  one  defence, 
her  Fleet.  And  she  had  no  more.  She  lay 
there,  in  her  ocean-nest,  a  IVIidgard  snake 
whose  fangs  might  by  force  or  fraud  be 
drawn;  then  the  gods  of  Valhalla  would  feed 
sweetly  upon  her.  These  metaphors  sum  up 
the  greatest  perils  that  have  ever  lain  in  wait 
for  the  British  Empire. 

Kaiser  Wilhelm,  or  the  brooding  genius  of 
Germany,  had  thus  not  only  beaten  Social 
Democracy,  but  captured  and  exploited  the 
strength  that  was  in  it — an  amazing  piece  of 


EXTER  KAISER  WILHELM   201 


luck,  due,  however,  to  the  strategy  which 
takes  the  offensive  when  the  foe  comes  within 
striking  distance.  This  pecuhar  eifect  of 
Conferences  of  Berhn,  social  enactments,  and 
State  backing  of  private  enterprise,  was,  I 
think,  quite  overlooked  at  the  time.  How 
to  meet  the  demands  of  Socialism  occupied 
men's  minds  in  Western  Europe.  But  that  a 
cunningly  devised  State  Socialism  might  be 
turned  to  the  aggressive  purposes  of  Welt- 
politik,  who  was  far-sighted  enough  to  per- 
ceive it  between  1890  and  1900  save  those  that 
set  it  up  ?  And  they,  for  aught  I  know,  were 
groping,  but  in  the  right  direction. 

There  were  many  side-issues.  Time  has 
demonstrated  that  this  was  the  "Main,"  the 
rest  mere  ''Bye  plots."  Germany,  victor  on 
land  in  a  Europe  disunited  and  feeble,  came 
to  the  resolution,  as  her  population  grew  with 
prosperity  while  the  room  she  had  for  them 
dwindled,  that  she  must  win  colonies,  create 
an  unconquerable  fleet,  keep  her  sons  under 
her  flag,  and  stretch  on  and  on,  till  she  arrived 
by  way  of  the  South-E  astern  line,  through 
Austria,  Turkey,  and  Asia  Minor,  at  the 
Persian  Gulf.  Count  these  heads  of  policy, 
and  you  will  see  that  every  one  of  them 
menaced  the  British  Empire,  already  begin- 


202       THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 

ning  to  be  undermined,  as  if  it  were  China  in 
decrepitude,  by  "peaceful  penetration."  The 
Pan-German  idea  has  been  reahsed,  in  its 
constructive  part,  almost  to  the  letter.  There- 
fore it  was  not  an  empty  dream.  What  we 
have  yet  to  see  is  whether  its  aggression  upon 
England  will  succeed.  Unless  it  does  the 
Pan- German  idea  will  be  rolled  up  like  a 
scroll,  and  pass  away  in  fire. 

Those  French  five  milliards  gave  the  capital 
needed  as  a  starting-point.  Socialism  with  its 
sham  voting  power  made  much  noise,  but 
actually  served  as  a  lightning-rod  to  draw  off 
strokes  from  the  Government,  by  seeming  to 
assure  the  "comrades"  outside,  all  over  Europe, 
that  it  could  and  would  prevent  the  Kaiser  from 
embarking  on  war.  Italy,  suffering  at  home,  at 
odds  with  France,  had  no  choice  but  to  remain 
in  the  Triplice,  an  unwilling  yoke-fellow  with 
Austria.  Lord  Salisbury,  who  was  Premier 
in  the  early  years  of  Wilhelm,  in  1891  ceded 
to  him  Heligoland,  as  being  of  no  value  to 
us,  while  its  possession  by  foreigners  insulted 
German  pride.  So  far  back  as  1884,  Count 
Miinster  had  asked,  in  a  ''quiet  talk"  with 
Lord  Granville,  that  Germany  might  be 
allowed  to  take  the  island,  promising  to  make 
it  into  a  "harbour  of  refuge."    "This  was  too 


ENTER  KAISER  WILHELM   203 

much,"  observes  a  commentator,  "even  for 
the  easy-going  Lord  Granville."  But,  as  Dr. 
Johnson  said,  "useful  diligence  will  prevail"; 
and  the  request,  a  second  time  urged,  was 
granted  by  a  Tory  chief. 

In  the  language  of  Homer  one  is  tempted 
to  say  that  Lord  Salisbury  was  a  "great 
simpleton";  just  as  Lord  Palmerston  was 
when  he  laughed  at  the  idea  of  the  Suez 
Canal;  and  a  much  later  statesman  who  let 
the  enemy  build  and  open  the  Kiel  Canal, 
amid  congratulations  from  our  Admiralty, 
while  we  delayed  ten  years  before  completing 
our  Naval  station  at  Rosyth.  Simpletons,  not 
criminals,  gentlemen  all,  jolly,  or  philosophic, 
or  smooth-tongued  rhetoricians,  to  whom 
some  god  refused  insight  and  foresight!  But 
if  simpletons,  innocents;  and  here  beginneth 
the  second  lesson.  The  first  was  Prussia's 
organising  scheme,  governed  by  one  consistent, 
subconscious  thought.  This  second  reading, 
lamentable  as  a  doom  fallen  upon  us,  I  take 
to  be  an  old  story,  England  the  Unready. 

You  will  not  have  forgotten  that  passage 
in  Froude  where  he  speaks  of  the  ''kind  of 
prologue"  which  in  history  "sometimes  an- 
ticipates the  true  opening  of  the  drama,"  as  if 
"the  shadows  of  the  reality  were  projected 


^04       THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 

forwards  into  the  future."  The  war  with 
Denmark  for  Schleswig-Holstein  was,  we  said, 
such  a  prologue,  foreshadowing  the  Bismarck- 
ian  Era.  Now,  as  a  curtain-raiser  to  the  vast 
European  and  American  fight  for  freedom, 
came  the  Boer  War,  in  which  England  played 
what  seemed  to  many  a  German  part.  I  could 
tell,  and  may  if  I  am  spared  do  so  elsewhere, 
some  very  curious  circumstances,  happening 
long  ago,  which  would  have  made  that  war 
impossible.  But  the  chance  was  not  seized  by 
the  unsophisticated  Britons,  friends  of  mine 
much  later,  to  whom  fortune  offered  it.  The 
Boers  had  trekked  over  the  Vaal;  the  Rand 
was  discovered  to  have  gold  which,  like  that 
of  the  land  of  Havilah,  was  good;  but  it 
literally  accomplished  the  curse  of  Timon; 

"Make  large  confusion,  and  thy  fury  spent 
Confounded  be  thyself." 

Johannesburg  rose  like  an  exhalation,  and  a 
very  unwholesome  one,  from  those  deep  cut- 
tings for  ore.  Let  me  not  talk  of  Mr.  Glad- 
stone, Majuba,  "say  suzerainty,"  the  Outland- 
ers,  or  the  idle  rhyme  of  the  exploiter — 

"  'This,'  he  said,  in  perfect  Yiddish, 
'Must  be  ours,  for  it  is  Bridish.'  " 

I  believe  England  had  a  good  case,  when  "Dr. 


ENTER  KAISER  WILHELM   205 

Jim,"  with  our  neighbouring  ground-landlord 
in  Oxfordshire,  Sir  John  Willoughby — both 
have  since  done  excellent  service  for  the 
Empire  and  S.  Africa,  yet  this  cannot  justify 
them — went  on  the  ever-memorable  Jameson 
Raid,  and  spoilt  that  case  in  the  eyes  of 
Europe.  They  were  well  beaten — and  how 
many  were  taken  prisoners?  No  matter.  I 
will  only  remark  that  on  me  the  impression 
m^de  by  that  unlucky  stroke  was  as  if  the 
Atlantic  liner,  Britannia,  had  suddenly  re- 
ceived the  blow  of  a  torpedo  in  mid-ocean. 
From  stem  to  stern  the  great  vessel  shivered; 
a  wide  rent  was  torn  open  in  her  side.  Presi- 
dent Kruger,  whose  name  the  British  public 
would  not  stoop  to  pronounce  aright  (careless- 
ness, not  insolence,  it  was,  but  a  bad  sign, 
betokening  the  less  desirable  qualities  of  this 
insular  people),  had  not,  like  envious  Casca, 
made  the  rent.  The  envious  Casca  was  Kaiser 
Wilhelm.  "I  sincerely  congratulate  you," 
the  Emperor  cabled  to  the  President  at 
Pretoria,  on  January  3,  1896,  "that  without 
making  any  appeal  for  the  help  of  foreign 
Powers,  you  have  succeeded,  with  your  own 
people  and  your  own  strength,  in  repulsing  the 
armed  bands  which  have  troubled  the  peace  of 
your  land." 


206       THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 

Here  was  a  flash  of  what  Dr.  Emil  Reich 
calls  "deliberate  lightning,"  aimed  straight 
from  Potsdam  at  the  British  Empire.  It  was 
meant  to  be  insolent,  and  was  aggressive.  The 
Kaiser  saw  his  chance,  as  he  thought;  and 
Britain's  African  dominions  were  to  be  hurled 
into  chaos.  Our  Government,  which  claimed 
to  be  suzerain  of  Transvaal,  "kept  silence  even 
from  good  words."  Thus  began  the  pohcy,  as 
undignified  as  misleading  and  dangerous,  of 
handling  the  Kaiser  much  as  a  timid  wife 
manages  her  drunken  husband  who  is  likely 
to  beat  her.  An  ignoble  simile?  doubtless; 
and  a  situation  corresponding  to  it,  which 
Nelson,  Canning,  or  Palmerston  would  never 
have  endured. 

Since  these  things  fell  out  such  a  Niagara- 
flood  of  events  has  poured  under  the  bridges, 
carrying  some  away,  that  we  are  in  the  posi- 
tion of  historians,  able  to  throw  into  perspec- 
tive the  closing  years  of  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury. The  Kaiser  was  our  foe.  By  ambition, 
by  loyalty  to  Prussia,  by  hatred  of  our  incur- 
able Liberalism,  this  royal  Jacob  had  made  up 
his  mind  to  supplant  his  uncle  Edward,  and 
to  bring  the  British  Empire  down.  Queen 
Victoria  bore  the  seeming  escapade  of  her  fa- 
vourite grandson  in  despatching  that  message 


ENTER  KAISER  WILHELM     207 


to  Pretoria  with  patience,  perhaps  with  a 
smile.  No  more  ill-timed  forbearance  could 
be  imagined.  A  bully  should  never  be  toler- 
ated. Yet  crowds  of  English  men  and  women, 
after  the  Kruger  telegram,  cheered  the  Kaiser 
on  his  progress  along  the  streets  of  London. 
It  is  difficult  to  characterise  behaviour  so 
unpatriotic,  so  indecent.  I  will  call  it  Byzan- 
tine, which  to  those  who  have  read  the  story 
of  Constantinople  is  severe. 

But  let  this  fact  be  noted:  by  January  1896 
the  Kaiser  was  England's  enemy.  There  is 
a  story  which,  in  my  fancy  for  symbolism, 
I  have  thought  significant.  Once,  when  a 
lad.  Prince  William  at  Sans  Souci,  or  what- 
ever it  was,  suffered  a  violent  attack  of 
bleeding  from  the  nose.  His  attendants 
were  alarmed.  "Don't  be  frightened,  Meine 
Herren,"  said  the  Crown  Prince,  asking  for  a 
towel,  "these  are  the  last  drops  of  English 
blood  leaving  my  veins."  By  1896  he  had 
quite  got  rid  of  them.  He  was,  without 
knowing  it  as  we  know  it  now.  Pan- German. 

That  "omen  to  the  prologue  coming  on," 
which  will  be  famous  and  condemned — cer- 
tainly condemned,  in  spite  of  Joseph  Cham- 
berlain and  Cecil  Rhodes — as  the  "Jameson 
Raid,"  put  England  in  the  wrong.     Becausv 


208       THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 


I  hold  her  to  be  absolutely  right,  and  even 
stainless,  in  the  matter  of  originating  the 
World-War,  I  am  not  one  of  those  who  ab- 
solve her  rulers  from  ineptitude,  or  even  worse, 
in  dealing  with  South  African  problems.  Mr. 
Gladstone  was  a  heaven-born  politician;  but 
outside  a  certain  sphere  his  acquaintance  with 
human  nature  was  limited  and  unreal.  Of 
Mr.  Balfour  I  shall  say  nothing.  Our  present 
situation  justifies  the  finger  on  the  lip.  Most 
of  us  will  now  grant  that  the  War  with  Trans- 
vaal and  the  Orange  Free  State  could  probably 
have  been  avoided  by  a  more  far-sighted  and 
less  capitalistic  policy.  The  gold  of  the  Rand 
is  not,  believe  it  who  will,  an  ethical  postulate. 
Peace  to  these  once  smouldering  ashes!  I 
need  only  remark  that  the  Boer  War,  in  which 
our  generals  knew  so  little  and  had  so  much 
to  learn,  lasted  from  October  11,  1899,  until 
]May  31,  1902.  It  happened  that  I  was  travel- 
ling pretty  often  and  to  considerable  distances 
on  the  Continent  during  that  period,  and  came 
in  contact  with  French,  Italian,  Greek,  and 
German  opinion  at  the  several  crises  of  our 
South  African  enterprise.  With  rare  excep- 
tions it  was  unfavourable,  even  in  Rome  and 
Athens,  to  Britain.  Our  sailors  felt  it  whom 
we  encountered  at  Messina  and  the  Piraeus, 


ENTER  KAISER  WILHELM     209 

This  was  the  more  remarkable  because  Italians 
and  Hellenes  still  worshipped  Gladstone's 
memory,  as  they  had  excellent  gi'ounds  for 
doing.  But  President  Kruger  seemed  to  them 
the  champion  of  freedom,  England  the  op- 
pressor. Had  the  Deutsche  Bank  no  concern 
in  feeing  these  voices,  these  "most  sweet 
voices,"  to  bellow  reproaches  against  Albion? 
We  know  what  it  has  done  since,  directly  or 
indirectly;  we  may  draw  our  own  inferences. 
By  the  year  1900  the  conspiracy  against  Brit- 
ish Power  was  thoroughly  engineered  from 
Berlin,  on  every  line  of  attack,  diplomatic, 
commercial,  journalistic,  and  even  religious. 
The  Pan-German  furnaces  were  in  full  blast, 
vomiting  out  flames  on  the  cloudy  heavens,  as 
I  have  seen  them  in  the  Black  Country  on  a 
winter's  evening.  Europe  had  begun  to 
agonise.     A  new  age  was  at  the  doors. 

Queen  Victoria,  that  valiant  lady,  adored 
by  her  subjects,  celebrated  by  Mr.  Kipling  and 
M.  Bourget  as  "the  Widow  of  Windsor,  who 
owns  half  the  world,"  had  exclaimed  with 
spirit  that  she  was  not  going  to  die  to  please 
Mr.  Kruger.  But  the  South  African  War 
would  not  end,  though  victory  for  Britain  was 
already  assured.  The  blunders  of  a  most  ele- 
mentary kind  with  which  it  began  had  given 


210       THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 

place,  in  our  "rough  island"  fashion,  to  a  strat- 
egy that  the  Republics  could  not  cope  with, 
and  an  unexampled  skill,  capable  of  transport- 
ing over  six  thousand  miles  of  ocean  two  hun- 
dred thousand  men,  with  horses  and  munitions 
in  proportion,  such  as  no  distant  sea  had  borne. 
It  was  a  warning  to  the  Kaiser,  had  he  been 
a  wise  man,  and  not  merely  a  brilliant  impre- 
sario. That  was,  that  would  be,  Britain's  way 
should  hostilities  with  Germany  break  out.  It 
was  the  historic  meaning  of  Disraeli's  boast 
concerning  a  "second  and  third  campaign." 
However,  Lord  Roberts  came  home  a  con- 
queror, and  her  Majesty  gave  him  the  Garter. 
On  Tuesday,  January  22,  1901,  she  died  at 
Osborne. 

On  the  afternoon  of  February  1 — I  was 
then  living  at  Dorchester-on-Thames,  a  few 
miles  south  of  Oxford — it  chanced  that  my  re- 
vered friend.  Dr.  Darwell  Stone,  now  head  of 
Pusey  House,  and  I  were  walking  on  the  road 
which  goes  by  Nuneham  Harcourt,  when  a 
sudden  long-distant  sound  arrested  our  con- 
versation. We  listened.  The  dull  but  distinct 
pulsations  continued  at  regular  intervals.  We 
were  hearing  the  salutes  from  the  double  line 
of  warships  between  which  the  dead  Queen 
was  carried  across  the  Solent,  from  the  Isle  of 


ENTER  KAISER  WILHELM     211 


Wight  to  Gosport.  Of  so  much  we  could 
be  quite  certain.  People  came  out  from  the 
villages  and  stood  silently  at  attention  while 
the  cannon  boomed.  Queen  Victoria,  whom 
I,  when  a  boy,  had  seen  going  to  open  Parlia- 
ment, was  now  journeying  to  her  long  home. 
What  we  did  not  know,  and  what  few  but  the 
innermost  circle  of  diplomacy  could  imagine, 
was  that  those  gims,  the  reverberation  of  which 
from  the  Channel  to  the  Thames  we  were 
hearing,  announced  the  coming  War. 

It  was  already  written  in  the  Book  of  Fate. 
When  the  Kaiser  hastened  to  his  grandmoth- 
er's dying  bed,  no  doubt  he  was  touched,  for  he 
is  a  man  of  emotions,  and  the  English  people 
felt   kindly  towards   him.     But   not   for   an 
instant  did  he  falter  in  his  design  to  supplant 
his  uncle  Albert  Edward,  now  Edward  VII, 
King  of  Great  Britain  and  Ireland,  Emperor 
of  India.     To  make  war  on  Queen  Victoria 
would    have    been    an    outrage;    yet    by   the 
Kruger   telegram   he   had   risked   even   that. 
He  was  now,  in  comparison,  free.    The  acute, 
the  quivering  nerve,   would  be  the  question 
of  supremacy  on  water,  of  a  fleet  that  might 
challenge,    or    at    least    cripple,    the    British  . 
Navy,   with   Kiel   Canal   as   the   connecting- 
link  of  North  Sea  and  Baltic,  besides  docks 


212       THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 

and  materials  along  that  coast  from  which  an 
expedition  against  England  could  be  most 
easily  sent.  How  soon  could  such  a  fleet  be 
constructed?  Antwerp  should  certainly  be- 
come a  German  city.  There  must  be  a 
Zollverein  with  Holland.  Railways  should 
be  planned  and  built  running  towards  the 
Belgian  frontier.  Spies  on  an  elaborate  sys- 
tem were  needed  and  would  be  bought  for 
use — and,  of  course,  Germans  would,  in 
effect,  be  spies  in  all  countries,  East  and 
West — to  provide  maps,  statistics,  informa- 
tion down  to  the  most  minute  detail,  which 
the  General  Staff  would  sift  and  store  up 
against  "the  Day."  Sketches  are  made  before 
a  masterpiece;  and  the  Kaiser  was  busy 
sketching  in  his  own  mind  or  by  the  hands  of 
his  agents  the  great  Pan-German  design,  even 
while  moving  at  Windsor  in  the  funeral  pro- 
cession of  Queen  Victoria. 


CHAPTER  X 


The  ]\Iatter  of  Britain 


ON  May  31,  1902,  the  Peace  of  Vereeni- 
ging  was  ratified  at  Pretoria.  By  the 
terms  adopted,  and  still  more  by  the  spirit  of 
wise  conciliation  thanks  to  which  South  Africa 
found  complete  self-government  within  the 
Empire,  that  old  renown  of  England,  envied 
and  hated  in  the  Prussian  Court,  won  fresh 
lustre,  but  provoked  its  enemies  to  assail  it 
wherever  it  seemed  vulnerable.  Had  a  true 
Prophet  been  consulted  on  the  future  speedily 
impending,  and  would  he  have  given  reply, 
not  as  ancient  oracles  did,  but  in  plain  speech, 
he  must  have  said  somewhat  as  follows — 

"War  is  darkening  the  whole  sky.  The 
nations  cannot  escape  it.  For  there  is  civil 
strife  in  Heaven.  The  pohties  laid  up  there 
among  Platonic  ideals,  of  a  benevolent  master 
ruling  over  slaves,  and  of  free  men  ruling  over 
themselves — we  will  call  each  of  these  exemp- 
lars a  god — are  coming  to  equal  and  opposed 
perfection,    whether   we    look    at    the    spirit 

213 


214       THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 


within,  or  the  need  of  reahsing  them  in  visible 
and  earthly  elements.  Europe  is  divided  be- 
tween those  ideals;  and  Europe  has  parcelled 
out  the  globe  by  acquisition  or  influence. 
But  Germany,  which  is  the  living  genius  of 
autocracy,  is  not  content  with  her  share. 

"How  can  she  be?  Her  population  will  run 
to  seventy  miUions  in  a  dozen  years.  She  has 
no  means  of  housing  them  at  home;  she  will 
not,  if  she  can  help  it,  suffer  them  to  be  lost 
to  her  abroad  under  foreign  flags;  and  where 
are  the  colonies  that  should  receive  them  as 
a  Greater  Fatherland?  Others  than  Germany 
have  long  since  taken  all  worth  having  in 
Farther  Asia.  Africa  seemed  to  be  left  for 
German  use  and  profit.  But  France  holds 
one  great  section;  Portugal  another;  and 
Britain,  advancing  everywhere,  designs  a  rail- 
road from  the  Cape  to  Cairo,  which  as  back- 
bone of  the  Continent  w^U  give  her  command 
of  all  its  resources.  A¥hy  speak  of  Austraha? 
There,  too,  Britain  reigns.  The  Old  World 
is  barred  to  German  expansion  as  a  colonising 
Power.  Yet  she  must  colonise  or  perish,  or 
come  to  terms  of  lasting  peace  with  England, 
France,  Russia. 

''And  yet  again,"  the  Prophet  would  con- 
tinue after  a  pause,  "any  attempt  she  makes 


THE  MATTER  OF  BRITAIN     215 

at  peaceful  colonising — and  she  will  make 
many — is  doomed  to  failure.  Therefore  Ger- 
many will  go  to  War.  But  first,  her  African 
enterprises  will  break  down  in  well-merited 
dishonour.  After  that,  her  hopes  to  build 
a  German  State  in  South  America  will  be 
dashed  by  the  Monroe  Doctrine,  even  as 
Louis  Napoleon  foundered  in  ]Mexico.  She 
will  be  driven  east  and  south-east,  under  Pan- 
German  leaders.  Austria  will  give  her  no 
trouble;  and  Turkey — whether  Abdul  Hamid 
stay  at  Yildiz  Kiosk,  or  new  and  vile  phantoms 
which  I  dimly  discern  misgovern  in  his  stead — 
Turkey  will  be  had  for  the  bribing.  Ah,  if 
that  ubiquitous  Britain  were  not  planted  in 
Egypt  and  India!  Then  the  Baghdad  Rail- 
way, whose  metals  gleam  in  my  vision  from 
Ismid  and  trail  towards  Basra,  might  be  the 
beginning  of  joy  to  Teutons  in  a  glorious  Asia 
JNIinor,  first  protected,  then  annexed  by  the 
friendl}^  Kaiser,  whose  Black  Eagle  would 
love  to  fly  over  three  hundred  millions  of 
Moslemin. 

"But  no,  it  cannot  be.  For  Britain  rules 
the  waves,  and  her  gunboats  will  ascend  the 
Tigris;  and  whatever  it  cost  her  she  will 
not  endure  a  wedge  like  this,  thrust  between 
her  Egypt  and  her   India.     Will   Germany 


216       THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 

try  again?  Yes,  in  the  Mediterranean  at 
Tangier,  on  the  Atlantic  at  Agadir,  always 
striving  to  break  or  bridle  England's  mari- 
time power.  And  she  will  fail  again  and 
again.  Then  she  will  know  that  the  supreme 
effort  must  be  made  near  home.  Her  fleet, 
already  second  in  the  world,  must  become 
the  first.  Her  sea-coast  will  absorb  the  Bel- 
gian certainly,  the  Dutch  if  necessary.  Not 
in  waters  far  away,  but  amid  the  fogs  and 
shoals  of  the  North  Sea,  younger  Teuton 
will  try  conclusions  with  elder  Anglo-Saxon. 
And  other  enigmatic  shapes  I  perceive  gliding 
through  the  gloom  of  ocean-deeps,  with  strange 
loud  birds  whirring  high  up  above  the  clouds, 
forms  of  slaughter  which  never  had  a  likeness, 
hurling  down  death  or  sending  it  up  from 
the  nether  abysses.  But  everywhere  Britain 
assailed,  and  answering  back!  Will  the 
nations  join  in?  Surely,  a  company  on  each 
side,  growing  till  none  remain  behind  neutral. 
Yet  the  war  is  between  the  Land-Power  and 
the  Sea-Power ;  a  war  of  ideals  and  a  Day  of 
Judgment.  I  tell  you  it  is  already  darkening 
the  whole  sky.    You  have  my  leave  to  go." 

Thus  far  my  Prophet,  after  the  event.  To 
us  whose  gift  of  prevision  is  small,  the  future 
was  more  clouded,  though  not  entirely  hidden. 


THE  MATTER  OF  BRITAIN    217 

But  our  men  of  light  were  few,  and  they  could 
secure  no  leading.  Politicians  went  cheerily 
on,  leaving  to-morrow's  cares  till  they  came. 
That  imaginary  seer  for  whom  I  invented  the 
above  harangue,  saw  effects  in  ilieir  causes, 
large  impersonal  issues  in  a  world-story;  but 
he  did  not  touch  the  question  of  guilt  or 
innocence.  Nevertheless,  it  is  our  question. 
I  mean  that  there  is  a  right  and  a  wrong 
in  the  human  actors,  even  if  they  be  whole 
nations,  who  began  to  grapple  one  with 
another  in  August  1914.  The  general  situa- 
tion of  interests  and  forces,  I  grant,  has  been, 
in  my  Prophet's  dithyrambs,  faithfully  given. 
Now  we  have  to  point  out  dispassionately  that 
Britain  was  not  the  assailant  but  the  assailed; 
that  her  Allies  were  blameless  too;  and  that 
the  Central  Powers,  if  brought  to  the  bar  at 
a  Hague  Tribunal  where  Equity  sat  judge, 
would  be  cast  in  damages.  The  strongest 
proofs  of  all  this  are  extant  in  narrated  facts; 
they  do  not  depend  on  mere  assertion  or 
inference. 

When  Edward  VII  took  the  high  place 
which  Queen  Victoria  left  in  such  honour, 
two  things  were  evident.  First,  this  England, 
during  the  Queen's  reign,  was  ever  complaisant 
to  the  German  and,  from  long  before  1870,  to 


218       THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 

the  Prussian  Power.  By  rigid  non-interven- 
tion she  had  allowed  the  New  Empire  to  at- 
tain more  than  its  legitimate  strength.  It  is 
not  much  of  an  exaggeration  to  say  that  Al- 
sace-Lorraine was  given  to  the  Prussian  War- 
Lord  with  England's  blessing.  In  Africa, 
where  Prince  Bismarck  entered  somewhat 
slowly  on  colonial  adventures  in  1884,  the 
British  not  only  permitted  but  actively  pro- 
moted the  formation  of  the  German  East 
African  territory,  which  broke  their  own  line 
from  south  to  north;  and  Lord  Salisbury  threw 
in  Heligoland  as  a  douceur  to  melt  the  Teu- 
tonic heart  at  home.  By  1900,  thanks  to  our 
complacency,  the  Kaiser  had  no  less  than 
900,000  square  miles  of  the  Dark  Continent  to 
his  credit. 

Even  a  more  momentous  surrender  must 
be  put  on  record.  Though  Disraeli  had  saved 
Stamboul  from  the  Russians,  and  did  his 
utmost  to  limit  the  triumph  of  the  released 
Christian  nationalities,  England,  by  the  time 
of  Edward  VII,  was  determined  never  again 
to  lift  a  hand  on  behalf  of  Turkey.  A  resolu- 
tion worthy  of  all  praise;  but  the  alternative 
surely  was  not  to  leave  the  Ottoman  Empire 
as  a  floating  derelict  at  the  mercy  of  pirates — 
which  is  what  happened — but  to  insist  on  the 


THE  MATTER  OF  BRITAIN     219 

reforming  clauses  of  so  many  previous  treaties, 
including  the  Cyprus  Convention,  and  to  have 
them  executed  under  the  eye  of  Europe. 

In  dealing  with  Turkish  questions,  I  am 
afraid  we  must  allow,  the  successive  British 
Governments  acted  with  a  self-regard  un- 
worthy of  our  obligations  as  of  the  nation's  real 
desire,  which  was  neither  cynical  nor  careless, 
but  very  much  confused  by  ignorance.  We  are 
now  paying  a  heavy  ransom  for  the  mistakes 
on  a  great  scale  termed  the  Crimean  War,  the 
Berlin  Congress,  and  the  Turkish  Revolution 
of  1908,  to  the  last  of  which  we  contributed 
by  letting  the  Germans  assume  at  Constanti- 
nople the  office  we  had  abandoned  as  chief 
adviser  to  the  Sultan.  But  my  contention  in 
this  paragraph  is  that,  by  so  doing,  we  cleared 
away  the  most  formidable  hindrance  to  Ger- 
man expansion  south-eastward,  even  to  the 
shores  of  the  Persian  Gulf.  As  in  the  sphere 
of  economics  we,  by  our  Free  Trade  policy 
and  by  the  freedom  of  the  seas,  opened  our 
markets,  manufactures,  ports,  and  ocean- 
routes,  to  be  exploited  from  Berlin;  so  by 
our  easy  ways  in  Africa,  by  our  abdication 
of  influence  at  the  Porte,  and  by  our  ready 
acquiescence  in  the  project  of  the  Baghdad 
Railroad    (concession   to    German   syndicate, 


220       THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 

1899)  we  surrendered  to  an  enemy  the  means 
of  our  destruction. 

Nevertheless — or  rather,  still  more  because 
of  these  things — that  enemy  hated  us.  And 
here  is  the  second  point  I  have  to  make.  In 
1902  Britain,  though  she  had  won  a  series  of 
victories  in  South  Africa  which  no  other  Power 
could  have  compassed,  stood  alone;  vaguely 
feared,  it  may  be,  she  had  fallen  into  grave 
differences  with  France,  while  her  natural 
friend  and  ally,  Italy,  was  united  in  a  bond 
not  soon  to  be  broken  with  Austria  and  Ger- 
many. As  regards  Russia,  our  politicians 
appear  to  have  said  once  for  all,  "Voila 
I'ennemi!"  The  great  men  of  the  Wilhelm- 
strasse  in  Berlin,  taught  by  Bismarck,  were 
delighted  to  encourage  these  complex  dissen- 
sions. They  had  one  clear  aim:  to  divide  the 
Powers  while  themselves  increasing  army  and 
navy  to  the  utmost  pitch  in  efficiency  and 
numbers.  Britain,  I  must  repeat,  had  no  sense 
of  the  general  situation,  therefore  no  definite 
view  in  foreign  affairs,  and  was  groping  at 
midday.  Warnings,  indeed,  came  from  those 
that  knew.  They  took  the  form  of  drawing 
attention  to  the  growing  menace  of  a  strong 
and  stronger  German  Fleet;  and  to  some 
extent  they  created  a  wholesome  alarm.    They 


THE  MATTER  OF  BRITAIN     221 


also  revealed  to  the  incredulous  ears  of  Eng- 
lishmen that  there  was  an  idea  called  Pan- 
Germanism,  which  would  give  trouhle  before 
many  years  had  passed.  This,  however,  was 
pouring  water  into  a  sieve.  We  do  not,  in 
London,  discuss  ideas  except  when  they  begin 
to  burn  down  the  Athenaum,  which  is  their 
British  sanctuary. 

It  was  not  very  soon  that  King  Edward 
became  aware  of  Pan-Germanism  as  a  con- 
crete reality  dangerous  to  the  peace  of  Eu- 
rope. But  England's  isolation,  he  thought, 
should  cease.  Knowing  persons  have  argued 
that  it  was  Lord  LansdoAvne  who  began  to 
think,  and  who  persuaded  Edward  VII  to  take 
up  the  part  of  general  peacemaker.  We  need 
not  try  to  find  out.  The  result  was  all  one; 
and  foreign  Courts  noted  it  with  surprise. 
England  had  resumed  her  long-abandoned 
function  of  guarding  or  restoring  the  Balance 
of  Power.  I  am  aware  how  displeasing  is 
the  "Balance"  to  speculative  Liberals;  but  I 
cannot  get  away  from  history.  Call  it  by  any 
other  name,  the  fact  which  was  now  asserting 
itself  in  real  "World  Politics"  was  parallel 
to  the  conduct  of  this  nation  in  every  previous 
age,  whenever  a  single  Power  threatened  to 
lord  it  over  the  Continent.    Our  British  King 


222       THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 

saw  so  much  as  that,  and  he  acted  up  to  his 
duty.  Pan- Germanism  could  not  be  appre- 
hended at  once ;  for  it  was  a  mystical  religion, 
with  legends,  dreams,  and  a  novel  fanaticism, 
to  give  it  a  questionable  shape.  But  a  new 
Napoleon  at  Potsdam  instead  of  the  Tuileries 
could  be  explained  by  his  French  prototype. 
Observe,  then.  This  first  step  of  Edward  VII 
to  end  England's  isolation  has  been  held  by 
German  diplomacy,  and  represented  to  the 
world  at  large,  as  an  attack  on  German  inde- 
pendence. The  British  sovereign,  they  said, 
meant  to  raise  a  Coalition  which  would  destroy 
the  Fatherland  root  and  branch. 

What  the  Edwardian  policy  had  in  view 
was  to  rescue  Britain  from  the  slough  of  mis- 
understandings where  politicians  had  left  her 
floundering.  The  King  came  to  an  agreement 
with  France  and  settled  Egypt ;  he  approached 
Russia,  and  the  confusion  which  had  so  often 
nearly  brought  us  to  blows  was  at  length 
cleared  up.  We  were  safe  in  India;  the 
spheres  of  influence  in  Persia  were  marked 
out.  I  cannot,  even  in  passing,  name  the 
country  of  the  Lipn  and  the  Sun,  that  ancient 
land  now  running  to  sandy  wastes,  without 
a  deep  feeling  of  regret — the  land  to  which 
we  owe  Firdausi  and  Hafiz,  not  to  speak  of 


THE  MATTER  OF  BRITAIN     223 

traditions  more  august.  But  I  do  know  that 
England  the  Civiliser  might  have  played  a 
beneficent  part  in  rescuing  the  people  from 
misrule  and  decay,  at  almost  any  time  and 
at  small  cost  during  the  last  half-century. 
They  longed  to  see  the  Briton  of  whom  they 
heard  so  much  good,  where  only  the  Russian 
came,  or  where  they  languished  under  a  cor- 
rupt anarchy.  The  official  mind  lives  in 
pigeon-holes;  it  abandoned  Persia  to  the  first 
who  would  take  it,  and  men  like  Valentine 
Chirol  preached  to  the  Foreign  Office  in 
vain.  And  so,  in  due  course,  there  was  a 
Teuton  in  power  at  Teheran. 

However,  I  must  quit  this  melancholy,  this 
fascinating  theme.  To  return  to  Edward  VII. 
His  royal  progress  to  one  Court  after  another 
has  had  lasting  effects.  France  learnt  that 
England  would  be  her  friend,  at  all  events 
while  the  King  lived.  The  Dual  Alliance  of 
the  Republic  and  Russia  began  to  ripen  into 
the  Triple  Entente.  Light  dawned  on  the 
chaos  of  Europe.  Those  whom  sharp  critics 
teiTQ  peacemongers,  not  peacemakers,  will 
argue  now,  as  they  did  then,  that  measures 
of  self-defence  (and  diplomacy  would  fall 
under  their  censure  no  less  than  war)  can 
never  be  justified  because  they  provoke  the 


224       THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 

aggressor.  We  took  ours  reluctantly,  in  a 
slow,  hesitating  way,  doing  as  little  as  we 
could,  and  doing  it  late.  Over  western 
Europe,  outside  Germany,  a  wave  of  non- 
resistance,  glinting  with  false  smiles  of  peace, 
flowed  after  1890;  nor  was  it  checked  by 
the  South  African  hurly-burly.  In  France  it 
rose  to  a  height.  Men  like  Urbain  Gohier 
wrote  on  The  Army  against  tJie  Nation. 
Socialists  like  M.  Herve  insulted  the  flag.  In 
the  secular  schools  a  propaganda  denouncing 
war — any  war — flourished  exceedingly.  The 
Government  v/as  for  doing  away  with  decora- 
tions, military  bands,  the  officers'  mess,  and 
taught  soldiers  to  disobey.  Lectures  were  de- 
livered exposing  life  in  the  army  as  cruel  and 
inhuman.  Need  I  do  more  than  mention 
"L' Affaire"  and  flee  from  it?  Then  there 
was  the  scandal  of  "les  Fiches,"  with  much 
else  too  saddening  to  recall.  But  I  draw  one 
conclusion,  as  certain  as  mathematics:  France 
had  not  the  shadow  of  a  design  upon  Ger- 
many. The  sorrow  of  lost  Alsace  and  Lor- 
raine might  be  deep  in  French  hearts.  No 
line  of  French  policy  from  1900  onwards  was 
dictated  by  it. 

Those  who  have  undergone  a  surgical  opera- 
tion will  never  be  the  same  after  it  that  they 


THE  MATTER  OF  BRITAIN     225 

were  before.  To  what  does  this  commonplace 
tend?  It  tends  to  prove  a  fact  anterior  to 
the  War  of  the  like  of  which  we  have  had 
repeated  and  even  terrible  experience  during 
the  War.  When  Germans  have  resolved  to 
commit  a  crime,  they  begin  by  charging  the 
victim  with  intending  to  do  it  first.  We 
remember  with  shuddering  how  in  this  way 
we  were  advertised  of  ZeppeHn  raids,  murder 
of  prisoners,  poison-gas  attacks,  ruthlessness 
at  sea,  torpedoing  of  hospital  ships.  The 
spies  of  all  ranks  and  professions  whom  Berlin 
dispatched  into  what  I  shall  henceforth  desig- 
nate the  "Allied  Countries,"  knew  well,  and 
must  have  reported  at  headquarters,  that 
the  Peace  jNIovement  was  widespread;  that 
governments,  especially  of  the  Liberal-Social- 
ist pattern,  favoured  it;  that  none  talked  of 
attacking  Germany,  while  all  were  hoping  that 
the  War  might  be  staved  off  indefinitely. 
But  to  admit  these  things,  however  certain, 
would  have  been  fatal  to  the  continued 
increase  of  the  army  estimates  and  have 
shown  the  Navy  League  in  its  true  colours, 
as  intending  to  destroy  the  English  supremacy 
at  sea  and  with  it  the  British  Empire.  Con- 
sequently King  Edward  VII,  Sir  Edward 
Grey,  ]\I.  Delcasse,  and  the  Western  Powers 


226       THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 

were  accused  of  planning  to  destroy  Ger- 
many, its  people,  and  its  institutions  alto- 
gether.    It  was  to  be  wiped  out. 

On  the  principles  of  the  "German  War- 
Book"  any  war  may  be  called  offensive  or 
defensive,  as  you  like  it.  But  the  genius  who 
inspired  that  volume,  Clausewitz,  held  that  a 
State  always  makes  offensive  war,  and  needs 
no  justification  beyond  the  hope  of  succeeding 
in  its  object.  Thus  the  Kaiser's  Council  works 
on  a  system  of  double  entry.  The  "just 
war  of  self-defence"  is  intended  for  the  public 
which  still  uses  old-fashioned  terms  of  con- 
science. The  real  and  sufficient  motive  is  the 
State's  "will  to  power."  And  so  Treitschke, 
"Ours  is  an  epoch  of  war;  our  age  is  an 
age  of  iron.  If  the  strong  get  the  better 
of  the  weak,  it  is  an  inexorable  law  of  life." 
Deutschland  was  strong,  Europe  was  weak; 
and  England  could  be  lulled  to  sleep  until 
the  time  came  to  finish  with  her.  Behold  the 
logic  and  the  ethics  of  the  situation!  A  pre- 
text, however,  was  wanted  by  way  of  persuad- 
ing the  "good  German  conscience."  There- 
fore let  it  be  repeated  by  all  babble-machines, 
for  ten  years  on  end,  that  the  British,  French, 
and  Russian  Governments  were  in  a  conspir- 
acy to  iiiin  the  Fatherland.    Of  course,  it  was 


THE  MATTER  OF  BRITAIN     227 

the  other  way  about.  ''The  Prussian  Govern- 
ment," says  Prof.  Morgan  in  his  introduction 
to  the  volume  cited  a  few  sentences  earlier, 
"has  always  attached  the  greatest  importance 
to  taking  away  its  enemy's  character  before 
it  despoils  him  of  his  goods."  .  .  . 

When  I  was  on  the  point  of  continuing 
this  lamentable  story,  in  which  envy,  cruelty, 
cunning,  and  infinite  falsehood  are  converted 
by  the  Teuton  theory  of  State-worship  to 
virtue  and  patriotism,  I  glanced  at  the  morn- 
ing's news.  And  I  read  as  follows:  "The 
Hague,  April  30.  The  German  authorities  in 
Louvain  have  ordered  that  the  ruins  of  all 
houses  burnt  in  1914  are  to  be  removed.  All 
traces  of  burning  in  Louvain  must  disappear 
within  four  weeks.  The  expense  of  the  work 
has  to  be  borne  by  Louvain." 

There  is  an  art  of  wickedness  and  meanness 
not  attainable  without  long  study,  constant 
practice,  and  a  spirit  congenial  to  it.  I  offer 
the  German  General  Staff  an  expression  of 
my  feelings  on  the  admirable  illustration  thus 
afforded  of  what  their  "War-Book"  pre- 
scribes. To  violate  a  neutral  country,  burn 
its  university — with  shootings  and  other  out- 
rages, quantum  sufficit,  to  exemplify  "Ter- 
rorism"— then,    on    the    eve    of    possible    de- 


228       THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 

parture,  to  make  the  victims  clean  up  the 
traces  of  crime  by  which  they  have  been 
deprived  of  home  and  all  they  had;  and  to 
compel  them  to  do  this  at  their  own  cost;  is 
a  stroke  of  genius  far  beyond  a  dramatist's 
invention.    Ave,  Caesar,  Imperator! 

I  pass  on.  From  the  year  1883,  according 
to  the  witness  of  Lord  Ampthill,  then  our 
ambassador  in  Berlin,  hatred  of  England  was 
intensified  by  Bismarck's  Colonial  policy.  The 
State  commanded  it;  and  "we  always  do 
what  our  sovereigns  tell  us."  Twenty  years 
of  such  ''mothering"  followed,  under  guidance 
of  Treitschke  and  the  academic  garrison,  of 
whom  Lord  Acton  wrote:  "they  hold  Berlin 
like  a  fortress."  These  high  teachers  were 
"almost  equally  united,"  says  Prof.  Morgan, 
''in  a  common  detestation  of  France."  By 
1903,  therefore.  Kaiser  and  people,  politicians 
and  learned  men,  were  of  one  mind.  The 
General  Staff  had  its  plans,  based  on  Moltke, 
for  the  invasion  of  the  West  through  Belgium, 
all  ready.  The  Army  governed;  and  "in  this 
shirt  of  steel  the  body  politic  was  enclosed  as 
in  a  vice."  ^The  double  game  of  threatening 
and  ensnaring  went  on.  There  was  a  "brutal 
offensive"  preparing;  and  in  a  drumfire  of 
phrases    which    startled    Europe    the    Kaiser 


THE  MATTER  OF  BRITAIN     229 


announced  it:  "Germany's  future  lies  on 
the  water;"  "that  trident  must  be  in  our 
fist;"  "when  you  meet  the  foe  you  will 
defeat  him — no  quarter  will  be  given,  no 
prisoners  will  be  taken.  ...  As  the  Huns  a 
thousand  years  ago  under  Attila  ...  so  may 
the  name  of  Germany  become  known;"  "you 
may  have  to  fire  on  your  own  parents  or 
brothers.  Prove  your  fidelity  then  by  your 
sacrifice;"  "you  must  all  have  only  one  will, 
and  it  is  mine;  there  is  only  one  law,  and  it  is 
mine;"  "nothing  must  happen  anywhere  in 
the  world  without  Germany's  consent;"  and 
"we  stand  in  bitter  need  of  a  great  German 
Navy." 

These  calculated  explosions  did  their  work. 
They  cleared  the  ground.  Obedient  as  an 
echo,  the  Reichstag  voted  for  a  scheme  by 
which  the  Navy  "should  become  so  formidable 
that  not  even  the  mightiest" — read  in  margin 
the  British — "would  dare  to  attack  it."  In 
1907-8  Heligoland  was  sheathed  in  concrete 
and  made  a  "German  Cronstadt,  covering  the 
mouths  of  Weser,  Elbe,  and  the  Kiel  Canal." 
Those  of  us  who  were  moving  about  in  the 
Reich  just  then  could  hear  of  excursion- trains 
carrying  patriots  at  cheap  rates  by  the  thousand 
to  admire  the  new  Gibraltar.    We  heard  many 


230       THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 

other  things  of  similar  moment;  but  England 
was  cumbered  about  much  serving;  and  when 
Mr.  Lloyd  George  passed  through  Frankfort,! 
his  errand  was  to  find  out  whether  he  had 
started  National  Insurance  on  the  best  lines; 
Our  own  "Navy  League"  was  a  private  fancy,' 
with  twenty  thousand  members.  The  German 
had  a  million,  and  they  believed  in  their  kind 
of  National  Insurance.  Their  Army,  in  a  time 
of  peace,  when  Russia  sat  licking  her  wounds 
inflicted  by  Japan,  and  when  the  West  lay 
still,  amounted  to  three-quarters  of  a  million, 
ready  for  Krieg-mobil.  But  the  Kaiser  had 
meditated  peace  from  his  tender  nails;  only, 
as  Treitschke  wrote  in  1863,  the  Almighty 
had  not  "commanded  us  Germans  to  allow 
our  enemy  to  march  undisturbed  on  Berlin." 

This  was  the  double  game  of  menace  and 
make-believe  at  which  Kaiser  Wilhelm  showed 
himself  an  adept.  He  longed — oh,  how  ard- 
ently!— for  alliance  with  France.  He  slipped 
into  Paris  incognito,  they  say.  But  England, 
but  Windsor,  was  his  boyhood's  home.  He 
took  liberties  with  our  ironclads,  as  being  a 
British  Admiral.  He  perorated  at  Guildliall 
on  the  blessings  of  peace.  He  came  over 
uninvited  with  a  staff  of  secretaries,  and  spied 
out  the  land.     He  wrote  a  private  letter  to 


THE  MATTER  OF  BRITAIN     231 


Lord  Tweedmouth,  who  was  First  Lord  of 
the  Admiralty,  on  Febmaiy  17,  1908,  to  help 
in  cutting  down  our  Naval  Estimates.     He 
advised  Mr.   Haldane  how  to  set  about  re- 
organising the  little  Army  of  Britain.     His 
brother.  Prince  Henry,  rode  through  England 
at  the  head  of  several  score  of  motor-cars ;  and 
our  Teuton  visitors  photographed,  sketched, 
took   notes    for   a   military   Baedeker.      The 
German  Admiralty  did  not  lag  behind.    Their 
fleets  manoeuvred   off  Devonport    (to  which 
Heligoland's  fortification  was  an  answer)  and 
in  Bantry  Bay.     I  had  nearly  forgotten  the 
staff-ride  of  German  officers  through  Kent, 
the   letting   loose   of   a   couple    of   thousand 
carrier-pigeons  from  Dover,  the  visits  of  dis- 
tinguished generals  and  military  experts   to 
the  East  Coast  and  the  Mersey  during  their 
holidays.     England  lay  in  her  magic  sleep; 
the  Kaiser  had  certainly  hypnotised  his  vener- 
able foster-mother. 

And  each  time  he  came  to  flatter  he  went 
back  to  execute  the  next  part  of  the  Great 
Plan.  It  is  all  down  in  black  and  white;  con- 
front the  dates,  and  draw  your  conclusions. 
Never  was  a  murder  more  carefully  thought 
out  by  a  Palmer  of  Rugeley  than  was  the  as- 
sassination of  the  British  Power  by  Queen 


232       THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 

Victoria's  grandson.  I  sj^eak  on  the  evidence. 
And  I  defy  England's  most  inveterate  enemy 
to  show  that  this  country  had  intended  mis- 
chief to  the  German  people,  or  to  the  House 
of  Hohenzollern.  As  for  France,  the  Teuton 
diplomacy,  inventive  as  it  is,  could  trump  up 
no  pretext  on  which  to  send  its  ultimatum  of 
July  30,  1914,  except  the  fact  of  the  under- 
standing with  Russia,  now  nearly  one  quarter 
of  a  century  old. 

But  I  must  go  farther  still.  Britain  would 
not  only  not  make  war  on  the  Fatherland; 
she  refused  to  provoke  it  by  framing  an 
adequate  defence.  Her  Tory  Government  did 
as  little  as  the  Liberal-Socialist  Governments 
which  from  1905  to  1914  held  the  reins. 
They  trusted  the  Kaiser;  they  scouted  the 
Pan-German  peril.  I  recall  with  pride  and 
sorrow  my  friend,  the  late  Sir  Rowland  Blen- 
nerhasset,  who  knew  Germany  and  its  rulers 
more  intimately  than  any  other  English-speak- 
ing writer  except  Lord  Acton.  His  wife, 
German  born,  was  the  most  learned  of  literary 
women  in  the  German  Empire.  I  might 
appeal  on  this  head  to  Count  von  Hertling, 
the  Bavarian  Premier,  who  had  every  oppor- 
tunity of  acquaintance  with  her  family  and 
her  writings.   Sir  Rowland,  then,  published  in 


THE  MATTER  OF  BRITAIN     233 

the  National  Revietv  a  series  of  articles,  laying 
bare  the  full  political  scheme  of  Prussian 
expansion,  which  had  taken  in  Austria  by 
the  way,  and  was  absorbing  the  Turkish 
dominions — in  short,  the  thing  we  have  seen 
accomplished.  Other  experts  revealed  the 
hopes  and  resources  of  the  German  Fleet. 
Others  again  called  attention  loudly  to  the 
significance  of  the  Baghdad  Railway,  which 
the  Deutsche  Bank  proposed  to  build  chiefly 
with  cash  drawn  from  the  pockets  of  John 
Bull.  Even  on  the  mysterious  theme  of 
German  finance  in  the  City,  disclosures  were 
not  lacking.  Fate,  so  to  speak,  was  showing 
her  cards. 

But  did  Premier  or  Foreign  Secretary  look 
at  them?  On  the  contrary.  With  ex- 
quisite politeness  they  held  their  eyes  down 
and  gazed  on  the  floor — of  the  House  of 
Commons.  They  would  not  believe,  although 
they  might  have  seen.  Sir  Edward  Grey  was 
willing  to  let  the  Baghdad  Expedition — 
directed,  as  our  armies  know  this  deadly 
springtime,  against  Egj^pt  and  India — was 
willing,  I  repeat,  to  let  it  run  upon  British 
sleepers,  all  expenses  found,  had  not  private 
effort  in  England's  cause  obliged  the  official 
mind  to  retract  its  decision.     Lord  Roberts 


234       THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 

could  not  get  a  hearing  for  his  plans  of  Home 
Defence.  But  the  Fleet  was  starved;  or,  to 
quote  the  convenient  words  of  Emil  Reich  on 
the  years  1904-1907:  "while  the  British  Naval 
Estimates  have  been  reduced  by  six  millions 
sterling,  the  German  have  increased  by  three 
millions.  While  British  arsenals  and  dock- 
yards are  being  reduced  and  neglected,  those 
of  Germany  are  being  rapidly  developed.  It 
is  only  a  continuity  of  policy  on  both  sides 
that  has  led  to  the  reduction  of  the  number 
of  British  ships  in  full  commission  and  an 
increase  in  the  German."  In  1902  we  had 
"no  North  Sea  Fleet  and  no  North  Sea 
policy."  The  year  after  saw  a  Committee  of 
National  Defence  set  up ;  our  great  ships  were 
to  leave  the  Mediterranean,  which  was  put  in 
charge  of  our  new  friends,  though  not  yet 
allies,  the  French;  we  should  then  be  able  to 
keep  a  protecting  eye  on  the  German  Ocean. 
But  we  wanted  a  Naval  basis  for  the  new 
departure,  and  Rosyth  was  fixed  upon.  It 
would  take  ten  years  to  improve  the  existing 
anchorage.  A  North  Sea  Fleet  came  into 
precarious  being.  But  "its  ships  were  not 
modern,  or  in  the  least  capable  of  meeting  the 
German  squadrons,"  did  they  come  to  invade 
us  from  Emden  and  the  Frisian  sands.  When 


THE  MATTER  OF  BRITAIN     235 

war  broke  out  in  1914,  Rosyth  was  still  wait- 
ing to  be  improved  into  a  base.  Govern- 
ment sternly  frowned  on  the  project  of  a  ship 
canal  between  the  Forth  and  the  Clyde.  And 
this  was  England's  attack  on  Germany. 


CHAPTER  XI 


Lightning  out  of  the  East 


TURKEY,  the  predominant  Power  of 
the  Near  East,"  said  General  von 
Bernhardi,  writing  in  October,  1911,  "is  of 
paramount  importance  to  us  Germans.  She 
is  our  natural  ally.  Turkey  is  the  only  Power 
which  can  threaten  England's  position  in 
Egypt  and  menace  the  short  sea-route  and 
the  land  communications  to  India."  These 
were  among  the  motives  which  had  induced 
the  Kaiser  to  take  under  his  protection  so  far 
back  as  1898  the  Sultan  Abdul  Hamid,  whom 
Mr.  Gladstone  branded  as  the  "Great  Assassin 
on  a  throne."  The  Sultan  was  held  in  this 
country  to  be  answerable  for  the  massacre  of 
many  thousands  of  Armenians.  During  the 
present  War  Turkish  free  lances  have  rooted 
out  the  whole  nation  with  indescribable  fury; 
while  the  Germans  have  looked  on  and  the 
Kaiser  made  no  sign.  It  is  evident,  therefore, 
that  in  1898  he  had  completely  adopted  the 
principles  which  make  of  success  in  Statecraft 

236 


LIGHTNING  OUT  OF  THE  EAST  237 

the  justification  of  exploiting  the  crimes  of 
third  persons,  "such  as  assassination,  incen- 
diarism, robbery,  and  the  like."  When  he 
thereby  became  suzerain  of  the  Sultan-Caliph 
he  was  but  obeying  his  own  War-Book. 

As  already  noted,  between  Prussians  and 
Turks  there  had  long  existed  a  sympathy,  of 
race  perhaps,  but  of  aims  and  character  without 
a  doubt.  Both  were  proud,  self-centred,  inso- 
lent slave-drivers,  at  odds  with  Liberal  Europe, 
orthodox  fanatics  of  a  religion  which  served 
them  at  once  as  Church  and  State,  in  virtue 
of  which  they  found  themselves  lords  of  the 
ascendant.  To  the  mind  of  Turk  as  of  Teuton, 
peace  was  "the  suspension  of  a  state  of  war"; 
and  man's  noblest  normal  condition  was  fight- 
ing. General  von  Moltke,  who  came  down 
in  the  line  of  thought  from  Clausewitz,  had 
when  young  trained  a  portion  of  the  Ottoman 
Army.  Now  General  von  der  Goltz,  his 
disciple,  would  undertake  to  beat  into  these 
dull,  brave  men  the  German  system  of  drill 
and  discipline.  Fate  hid  from  his  eyes  that 
one  day  the  rifle  of  a  Germanised  Turk  would 
shoot  him  dead,  in  an  Asiatic  campaign  to  with- 
stand the  Russians  and  the  English.  Bismarck, 
at  the  Congress  of  Berlin,  aided  Beaconsfield 
to  rescue  Turkey  in  Europe  from  utter  dissolu- 


238       THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 

tion.  The  Kaiser  was  described  in  the  years 
after  1898  to  the  thousands  of  the  faithful  as 
a  converted  Nazarene ;  his  silver  lamp  hanging 
before  the  shrine  of  Saladin,  Kurdish  saint  and 
hero,  bore  witness  to  his  faith  in  the  Prophet, 
and  was  regarded  as  a  thankoffering.  "Pro- 
tector of  Islam"  might  be  added  to  his  other 
titles;  fez  or  turban  to  his  official  headgear; 
"Allah  Akbar"  to  his  war-cries.  He  had 
lifted  his  glass  and  thundered  "Hurrah!"  at 
many  a  royal  banquet.  In  1908,  by  a  mocking 
echo  from  Stamboul,  he  and  all  Europe  heard 
the  ironical  answer,  "Huriyeh!"  The  "Com- 
mittee of  Union  and  Progress"  raised  it  in 
token  that  they  were  bringing  "enlighten- 
ment" to  the  subjects  of  Abdul  Hamid. 

"Huriyeh,"  we  learn  from  Sir  Mark  Sykes, 
"is  a  portmanteau  expression  of  the  greatest 
capacity;  it  at  once  describes  an  era,  an  his- 
torical incident,  a  mood,  and  a  school  of 
thought;  also,  it  has  various  interpretations 
besides;  among  others  it  means  'liberty.'" 
This  Pandora-box,  with  Hope  standing  con- 
spicuous above  its  motley  contents,  had  been 
conveyed  to  the  Golden  Horn  from  Paris  by 
a  horde  of  adventurers,  whom  the  present 
Shereef  of  Mecca  and  King  of  the  Hejaz 
denounced  in  solemn  terms  to  all  true  ^loslems 


LIGHTNING  OUT  OF  THE  EAST  239 

as  renegades  to  Islam  or  to  Judaism,  of  which 
respectively  they  were  born  subjects ;  as  gypsies 
and  nondescript  trash ;  offscourings  of  the  East 
thrown  back  by  the  West  and  bent  on  the 
destruction  of  religion.  Their  leaders,  Enver 
Bey,  Niazi  Bey,  and  the  rest,  called  themselves 
"Young  Turks";  their  object  was  to  inaugurate 
a  French  Revolution  in  Turkey,  by  which 
all  the  nationalities  owing  allegiance  to  the 
Sublime  Porte  should  become  free  and  equal. 
Such  was  the  meaning  of  "Huriyeh" — not 
the  Koran  and  the  sword,  but  the  principles  of 
1789  with  a  Civil  Constitution.  From  Salonica 
they  directed  their  efforts,  through  well-advised 
anarchy,  to  break  up  the  old  system.  Abdul 
Hamid  yielded  in  appearance,  perhaps  even  in 
fact.  He  restored  the  Constitution  of  1876, 
which  he  had  given  and  taken  away,  with  its 
grant  of  "equalitj^  before  the  law"  to  all  his 
subjects  of  whatever  race  or  creed.  Universal 
brotherhood  was  proclaimed.  Turks,  Greeks, 
Albanians,  Jews,  Armenians,  embraced  in  the 
open.  Enver  Bey  and  his  "perverted  free- 
masonry" won  loud  applause  from  the  Liberal 
West.  But  imagine  what  a  counterstroke  this 
was  felt  to  be  in  Potsdam!  Yet  the  new- 
drilled  Turkish  army  was  marching  pretty 
fast,  at  the  bidding  of  the  Committee,  towards 


240       THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 

the  Sultan's  deposition.  And  how  could  the 
Pan-German  idea  be  secured  now? 

"Liberty"  struck  its  first  blow  on  July  22, 
1908.  We  cannot  believe  that  the  Central 
Empires  contrived  "Huriyeh";  or  that  they 
lost  one  moment  before  taking  counsel  together. 
The  man  of  the  hour  was  Von  Aerenthal,  an 
ambitious  Austrian  minister.  By  his  advice, 
fatal  to  millions  of  men  in  the  sequel,  a  step 
was  determined  upon  which  I  count  as  being 
the  immediate  occasion  of  the  World-War. 
He  persuaded  the  Emperor-King,  Francis 
Joseph,  to  annex  Bosnia  and  Herzegovina. 
This  meant  nothing  else  than  a  violation  of 
the  Berlin  Treaty ;  it  was  to  tear  these  provinces 
from  the  Sultan,  and  finally  to  enclose  Serbia 
in  a  ring-fence  which  during  thirty  years  she 
had  been  striving  her  utmost  to  elude. 

Francis  Joseph,  a  man  upon  whom  all  the 
sorrows  of  life  had  come,  but  who  learnt  so 
little  from  them,  signed  that  decree  on  Oc- 
tober 2,  1908.  The  Kaiser  had  praised  him  for 
his  backing,  as  a  "brilliant  second"  of  Ger- 
many, in  the  political  duel  at  Algeciras;  he 
had  promised  an  equal  return.  The  call  was 
now  made.  For  by  seizing  the  two  provinces 
of  which  Austria  was  but  the  legal  adminis- 
trator,  ambitious  Aerenthal  raised  the  half- 


LIGHTNING  OUT  OF  THE  EAST  241 

slumbering  Eastern  Question  to  a  frenzy  of 
strife.  On  October  5,  1908,  Bulgaria,  which 
always  had  understandings  with  Austria,  de- 
clared her  independence.  The  Balkans  were 
shaken  as  by  an  earthquake.  Russia,  which 
had  created  them,  was  the  natural  guardian 
of  these  new  Christian  States;  what  would 
Russia  do?  Thus,  like  a  brand  into  a  powder- 
magazine,  the  question  had  been  flung  into 
the  midst  of  the  Great  Powers  which,  when 
it  should  be  stirred  up  a  second  time,  in  July 
1914,  would  kindle  all  the  world. 

Russia  took  half  a  stride  forward,  since  the 
Tsar  was  bound  to  protest.  Then  the  Kaiser 
leaped  up  "in  shining  armour,"  and  dared  him 
to  advance  another  inch.  This  very  curious 
duel,  or  flourish  before  possible  fighting,  will 
reward  our  close  attention.  The  two  Powers 
did  not  engage  in  war;  but  Prussia  won  a 
victory  more  than  diplomatic,  while  the  huge 
Slav  Empire  underwent  defeat.  How  was 
the  result  achieved?  1  answer,  by  calculation, 
or  by  what  is  known  in  physics  as  ' 'potential 
energy."  The  Prussian  theory  of  a  policy 
which  always  moves  on  force,  though  not 
necessarily  breaking  the  nominal  peace,  never 
had  a  more  complete  illustration. 

When  the  Kaiser  says  repeatedly,  "I  did  not 


242       THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 

want  war;  I  have  not  willed  it,"  he  speaks  as 
"falsely  true"  as  any  oracle  ever  did.  What  he 
wanted  were  the  spoils,  not  the  combat;  no 
hazards,  no  German  lists  of  casualties,  but  the 
prize  which  millions  of  casualties  could  only 
win.  Bear  this  Prussian  double-tongued  dealing 
always  in  mind;  you  will  then  have  mastered 
the  dialect  and  the  morals  of  the  Wilhelm- 
strasse.  It  is  the  secret  of  successful  juggling 
in  diplomacy.  You  never  intend  anything 
but  peace ;  only  your  peace  is  armed,  a  prologiis 
galeatus  to  exterminating  war,  should  your 
modest  request  meet  denial.  There  is  a  perfect 
story  picturing  the  situation,  about  a  "Coffee- 
King,"  in  Lawson's  Frenzied  Finance,  which 
in  my  gasping  for  space  I  have  no  room  to 
insert.  But  go  back  to  our  political  chess- 
board. A  consummate  player,  who  loiows 
himself  to  be  within  three — nay,  within  six, 
moves  of  giving  checkmate,  points  out  the 
inevitable  end  to  his  adversary,  and  wins  the 
game  without  troubling  to  move  the  pieces. 
Even  so  will  be  the  compelling  method  of 
"potential  energy"  in  Weltpolitik.  Russia 
was  made  to  see  three  moves  ahead;  the 
chessboard  fell  with  a  crash;  but  the  Balkan 
Alliance  sprang  up  armed. 

Yes,  in  spite  of  Clausewitz,  the  best-laid 


LIGHTNING  OUT  OF  THE  EAST  243 

schemes  of  Berlin  "oft  gang  a-gley,"  and  so 
they  did  in  this  able  device  of  pushing  Austria 
towards  the  Aegean,  thus  realising  another 
stage  of  the  Pan-German  advance.  For,  as  I 
used  to  tell  unbelieving  Oxfordshire  farmers 
in  1886,  we,  that  is  to  say.  Great  Britain,  had 
a  life-and-death  interest  in  Salonica.  They 
had  never  heard  of  such  a  place;  and  could 
scarcely  credit  that  St.  Paul  had  written 
Epistles  to  the  natives  in  those  parts.  Salonica 
is  a  sad  name  to  many  of  us  now.  But  thus 
the  situation  was  created  which  followed  soon 
upon  the  policy  of  Vienna  condemning  Serbia 
to  be  an  Austro-Hungarian  "enclave,"  with- 
out a  seaport,  without  markets,  unless  the 
swineherds  of  the  Danube  would  be  content 
to  sell  their  produce  in  the  Dual  Empire.  And 
Russia  with  its  almighty  Tsar  could  not  come 
to  the  aid  of  the  Balkans. 

Here  the  double  and  treble  distilled  treach- 
ery of  the  Prussian  system  may  be  caught  in 
the  act.  Germany  had  not  renewed  Bismarck's 
reinsurance  at  Petersburg.  But  the  Kaiser, 
as  if  he  were  the  late  Charles  Pearson,  had 
driven  Russian  fancy  distracted  by  constant 
talk  and  a  picture — literally  painted  by  his 
own  amateur  hand — of  the  "Yellow  Peril." 
Japan  was  going  to  swallow  up  Eastern  Asia. 


244       THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 

Must  we  repeat  the  muddled  story  of  Port 
Arthur,  so  discreditable  to  English  diplomacy ; 
— the  acquisition  by  the  Prussian  "mailed  fist" 
of  Kiao-Chau;  the  Russo-Japanese  War;  the 
Dogger  Bank  disaster;  the  triumph  of  science 
in  Japanese  hands ;  the  Treaty,  under  American 
auspices,  of  Portsmouth,  U.S.A.?  Happily, 
there  is  no  need.  Remark,  however,  the  in- 
variable mischief-making  which  would  seem 
to  be  the  Hohenzollern  conception  of  foreign 
policy.  Bismarck  encouraged  France  to  seek 
expansion  in  Farther  Asia  that  she  might 
keep  her  hands  full,  and  off  Germany.  He 
manoeuvred  the  Court  of  Vienna  towards  the 
Balkans  chiefly  on  the  same  account;  for  he 
was  never  exactly  a  Pan-German.  And  the 
Kaiser  stands  responsible  for  the  challenging 
acts  of  Russia,  to  which  Tokio  could  not  reply 
except  by  war.  The  false  intelligence  which 
brought  on  the  Dogger  Bank  incident,  and 
almost,  in  consequence,  hostilities  between 
England  and  Russia,  has  been  confidently 
traced  to  Berlin.  For  the  Teutonic  key-word 
is  Schadenfreude,  delight  in  another's  mis- 
fortune. But  though  in  1908  and  1912  the 
Tsar  did  not  dare  to  move,  the  Balkans  could 
form  a  league.  To  the  world's  astonishment 
that  league  proved  itself  capable  of  miracles. 


LIGHTNING  OUT  OF  THE  EAST  245 

f  ^ 

In  1912  another  War  of  Liberation  flamed  up. 
And  the  last  agony  of  Turkey  in  Europe  still 
holds  us  at  gaze. 

For,  to  quote  Sir  INIark  Sykes  again,  who, 
from  his  own  point  of  view,  is  admirable  on 
this  subject,  "The  fall  of  Abdul  Hamid"— he 
was  deposed  in  1909 — "has  been  the  fall,  not 
of  a  despot  or  tyrant,  but  of  a  people  and  an 
idea.  .  .  .  He  ruled  ill,  in  blood,  confusion, 
and  terror."  He  fought  for  the  old  order, 
"pertinaciously  but  despairingly."  And  so, 
his  surrender  to  the  "Young  Turks,"  who 
pretended  to  have  drunk  deep  of  the  spirit  of 
the  age,  was  not  quite  unwilling.  But,  con- 
tinues Sir  Mark,  "in  the  place  of  theocracy, 
Imperial  prestige,  and  tradition,  came  atheism, 
Jacobinism,  materialism,  and  licence.  ...  In 
an  hour,  Constantinople  changed;  Islam,  as 
understood  by  the  theologians,  as  preached 
in  the  mosques,  as  the  moral  support  of  the 
people,  as  the  inspiration  of  the  army,  died 
in  a  moment;  the  Caliphate,  the  clergy,  the 
Koran,  ceased  to  hold  or  inspire." 

And  in  that  hour,  Macedonia  calling  to 
them,  Bulgarians,  Greeks,  Serbians,  Montene- 
grins, united  to  their  wonder  by  the  Cretan 
Venizelos,  nay,  by  Ferdinand  the  Fox,  poured 
out   in   battle   array,    soldiers   of   the    Cross, 


246       THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 

trained  to  the  best  weapons,  with  modern 
French  artillery,  and  rushed  upon  the  Ger- 
man-drilled Ottomans,  who  faltered  and  fled 
before  them.  It  was  a  strange  great  epic,  that 
first  Balkan  War,  in  the  dark  autumn  of  1912. 
"Turkey  in  Europe  was  lost,"  writes  its 
friend.  Sir  Mark  Sykes,  "lost  because  dissi- 
pated, half-educated,  emasculated  hahus  could 
not  lead  a  disillusioned  peasantry  whose  God 
had  hidden  His  face  from  a  faithless  people." 

I  quote  with  respect;  but  in  these  matters 
we  must  choose  our  side.  The  Allies  have 
chosen  theirs  in  the  decisive  reply  to  President 
Wilson,  where  they  announce  their  intention 
(as  I  find  it  rendered  in  the  National  Review, 
May  1917)  as  "the  setting  free  of  the  popula- 
tions subject  to  the  bloody  tyranny  of  the 
Turks,  and  the  turning  out  of  Europe  of  the 
Ottoman  Empire."  For  myself,  I  printed  on 
January  1,  1913,  the  following  words  under 
title,  "The  Year  of  Redemption."  I  take 
this  "child  of  golden  Hope"  into  my  arms 
once  more. 

"Few  of  us,"  I  said,  "that  remember  the 
Crimean  War  with  its  impotent  conclusion  at 
Paris  in  1856,  or  the  iniquitous  Treaty  of 
Berlin  forced  upon  Europe  by  Prince  Bis- 
marck and  Lord  Beaconsfield  in  1878,  ever 


LIGHTNING  OUT  OF  THE  EAST  247 

hoped  to  witness  the  great  deHverance  of 
Christian  serfs  from  Turkish  misrule  that  has 
now  come  to  pass.  The  cannon  of  Bulgaria 
have  been  heard  thundering  in  the  heart  of 
Constantinople.  The  Ottomans  have  been 
swept,  bag  and  baggage,  out  of  Macedonia. 
The  Greeks  hold  Salonica  by  right  of  their 
sharp  sword.  The  Serbians  lie  entrenched 
and  victorious  in  their  ancient  capital,  Uskub, 
and  have  marched  over  the  mountains  down 
to  the  shining  waters  of  the  Adriatic  at  Du- 
razzo.  The  Montenegrins  keep  watch  round 
Scutari,  'the  Desired.'  Turkey  in  Europe 
is,  to  all  intents,  a  thing  of  the  past.  Let 
diplomacy  juggle  and  cheat  as  it  will — as  it 
always  has  juggled  and  cheated — ^the  year 
1912  remains  the  Year  of  Redemption.  And 
the  enslaved  peoples  themselves  have  wrought 
it,  with  a  courage,  a  science,  a  splendour  of 
design  and  united  action,  that  leave  the  whole 
world  agape  in  admiration  at  their  exploits. 
Not  Russia,  not  Austria,  has  conquered  the 
old  enemy  of  Christendom;  but  these  shep- 
herds, these  farmers,  these  merchants — yea, 
these  keepers  of  swine  in  Serbia.  It  is  the 
hour  of  the  Magnificat:  'He  hath  put  down 
the  mighty  from  their  seats,  and  hath  exalted 
them  of  low  degree.'    Fifty  and  six  years  ago, 


248       THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 

Europe  affirmed  the  integrity  of  the  Ottoman 
Empire.  Providence  judged  a  very  different 
judgment,  and  has  now  executed  it  by  the 
hands  of  the  long-despised  Greeks  and  Slavs." 
I  published  these  words,  which  still  have 
life  in  them  and  truth,  during  the  armistice, 
when  Sir  Edward  Grey  was  presiding  (and  his 
virtual  shelving  in  this  manner  we  attribute  to 
German  astuteness )  over  the  ineffective  Confer- 
ence in  London.  Negotiations  failed;  the  war 
began  again.  Sir  Mark  Sykes  writes  of  "the 
unnatural  Balkan  Confederation,"  as  if  there 
were  something  monstrous  in  Christians  who 
were,  or  whose  fathers  had  been,  "rayahs"  under 
the  Turk,  forming  a  league  against  him.  Un- 
happily, there  sat  on  the  throne  of  Bulgaria  one 
who  was  an  Austrian  officer  before  all  things, 
and  who  sent  his  Dr.  Danev  to  bring  the  key 
of  Stamboul  from  Vienna,  where  it  had  long 
been  guarded.  In  the  first  phase  of  the  war 
the  lines  of  Chatalja  had  proved  too  hard  for 
King  Ferdinand's  exhausted  troops.  A  com- 
paratively moderate  Treaty  of  Peace  with 
Turkey  now  followed.  But  it  left  large  terri- 
tories to  be  divided.  The  Balkan  alliance 
fell  to  pieces.  And  Ferdinand,  who  wanted 
Macedonia  for  himself,  acting  through  his 
general  Savov,  while  Austria  gave  him  the 


LIGHTNING  OUT  OF  THE  EAST  249 

needful  impulse,  committed  as  black  and  fatal 
a  deed  of  treachery  as  may  well  be  conceived, 
by  attacking  his  late  friends  and  comrades 
unexpectedly,  on  June  16  (O.S.),  1913.  Four 
days  earlier,  M.  Sazonov  wrote  to  this  officer- 
king:  "You  are  acting  on  the  advice  of  Aus- 
tria; you  are  free.  Russia  and  Slavdom  are 
rejected.  We  have  done  our  duty.  .  .  .  For- 
get the  existence  of  any  of  our  engagements 
from  1902  down  to  this  day." 

Once  more  the  diplomacy  of  the  Ballplatz 
was  blowing  the  war-furnace  into  a  blaze.  On 
the  other  hand,  as  Mr.  Douglas  Sladen  M^ell 
observes,  "the  strength  of  the  Balkan  League 
threw  a  power  as  strong  as  Austria  into  the 
balance  of  Europe  on  the  Russian  side.  To 
suppose  that  Russia  took  any  part  in  breaking 
it  up  is  sheer  imbecility."  And  it  is  false. 
For  on  June  15  (O.S.)  Count  Tarnovski, 
Austrian  Minister  at  Sofia,  telegraphed  to 
Count  Berchtold  at  Vienna:  "Bulgaria  wishes 
to  know  if  she  will  have  a  free  hand  in  attack- 
ing Greece  and  Serbia  should  she  give  up  to 
Rumania  the  line  of  Tutrakan-Balchik."  The 
answer  came:  "Bulgaria  knows  on  what 
conditions,  in  attacking  Greece  and  Serbia, 
she  can  be  secured  in  the  rear."  To  Austria's 
account,  therefore,  we  must  lay  the  second 


250       THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 

Balkan  War,  and  all  that  came  of  it.  I 
quote  in  epitome,  by  way  of  further  proof, 
the  remarkable  admission  of  M.  Atanas 
Shopov,  formerly  Bulgarian  Consul-General 
at  Salonica.  He  wrote  in  the  3Iir  of  January 
21  (O.S.),  1914— 

"From  the  beginning  of  the  War  in  the 
Balkan  Peninsula  two  political  tendencies 
were  at  strife:  the  Triple  Entente  and  the 
Triple  Alliance.  The  Entente  favoured  the 
Balkan  Confederation;  while  the  Triplice 
sought  to  compromise  and  ruin  it,  as  being 
contrary  to  its  own  interests.  This  latter 
policy  prevailed  in  Bulgaria,  where  during 
the  winter  and  spring  of  1913  a  very  lively 
and  astute  agitation  was  carried  on,  not  only 
among  the  Opposition,  but  in  the  Supreme 
Command  as  well  as  in  the  army  at  the 
front." 

This  appears  to  be  the  simple  truth.  Hence 
the  second  Balkan  War  has  been  termed 
a  royal  couj?  d'etat,  preparing  even  when 
Adrianople  fell  to  Serbian  valour.  Men  like 
Radoslavov  refused  the  arbitration  proposed 
by  Russia.  Ghenadiev,  the  heir  of  Stam- 
bulov,  became  a  link  between  Ferdinand  and 
the  irresponsible  Macedonian  Committee;  all 
these  three  took  their  orders   from  Vienna. 


LIGHTNING  OUT  OF  THE  EAST  251 

Treachery  began  the  assault  on  Greeks  and 
Serbians,  who  replied  with  such  vigour  that 
Bulgaria  lost  the  whole  of  her  previous  gains 
at  the  moment  when  Rumania  moved  her 
forces  over  the  Danube  and  was  sending  them 
on  to  Sofia.  Then,  with  piteous  gestures,  the 
Ministry  which  had  insulted  the  Tsar's  Gov- 
ernment now  on  its  knees  implored  his  inter- 
vention. Russia's  diplomacy  saved  the  rem- 
nants of  the  stricken  army,  and  persuaded  the 
Rumanians  to  wait  outside  the  Bulgarian 
capital  so  that  an  accommodation  might  be 
reached. 

The  Peace  of  Bucharest,  in  which  Dr. 
Dillon  played  his  part,  could  not  satisfy  any 
of  the  belligerents;  but  it  delighted  the  Aus- 
trian heir-apparent,  Franz  Ferdinand.  His 
organ,  the  Beichspost  of  Vienna,  broke  out  in 
jubilant  tones:  "The  world  was  ready  to 
hand  over  the  Balkans  to  Pan-Slavism  as  a 
spoil.  By  a  single  stroke  all  that  is  changed." 
It  went  on  to  explain— and  we  should  grave 
the  words  in  our  memory — that  "Latin 
Rumania  with  its  brilliant  future"  had 
proved  to  be  one  hindrance;  that  another 
was  "the  granite  block  of  Albania,"  which 
barred  the  paths  of  Serbian  expansion  towards 
the  Adriatic;  and  that  the  "Slavonised  Bui- 


252       THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 

garians,"  just  because  they  were  not  Slavonian 
enough,  had  been  deprived  of  their  leadership 
by  their  quondam  allies.  It  concluded  in  a 
passage  of  deep  significance:  "The  outcome 
of  these  Balkan  quarrels  presents  no  forbidding 
features  to  the  Dual  JNIonarchy  or  the  German 
nation.  The  last  war  brought  larger  calamity 
to  the  Pan-Slavists  than  the  first  brought  to 
Turkey.  The  bounds  of  that  Slav  dream  are 
set  for  ever.  In  the  Balkans  it  has  defeated 
itself.  Europe  is  free  from  a  great  danger; 
the  Austro-Hungarian  Empire  from  a  menace 
w^hich  specially  regards  her." 

But  more  remains  behind.  From  the  reve- 
lations of  31.  Take  Jonescu,  the  celebrated 
Rumanian  statesman,  which  were  confirmed 
almost  directly  by  Signor  Giolitti,  speaking  in 
the  Italian  Parliament,  it  is  beyond  a  doubt 
that  Austria  meditated  war  on  Serbia  during 
August  1913.  The  policy  of  the  Ballplatz, 
in  warning  ]M.  Jonescu  as  it  did,  was  to  hold 
Rumania  sufficiently  in  check;  and  so  Count 
Berchtold  announced  that  "Austria-Hungarj'' 
was  ready  to  defend  Bulgaria  by  force  of  arms." 
To  San  Giuliano,  the  Italian  Foreign  Minis- 
ter, this  proposal  was  described  as  a  "preven- 
tive measure,"  which  would  constitute  a  casus 
foederis,  thereby  entitling  the  Triplice  to  aid 


LIGHTNING  OUT  OF  THE  EAST  253 

and  maintenance  from  the  third  partner  in 
the  Alliance.  But  even  Signor  Giolitti,  whose 
pro-German  sympathies  were  excessive,  could 
not  allow  the  Austrian  argument.  He  replied 
to  Count  San  Giuliano  that  such  a  war  would 
not  be  a  casus  foederis^  but  executed  by  Aus- 
tria-Hungary on  her  own  account.  He  said: 
"Wlien  no  one  thinks  of  attacking  her  she 
is  not  in  a  position  of  self-defence.  You 
must  convey  this  to  Austria  in  the  most  formal 
way;  and  it  is  desirable  that  Germany  should 
dissuade  her  from  persisting  in  so  highly  dan- 
gerous an  adventure." 

A^Tiat  Germany  did  we  are  not  likely  to  be 
told;  but  war  was  staved  off  yet  a  while. 
Bulgaria  had  broken  with  Slavdom  and 
Russia;  to  her  everlasting  shame  she  had 
villainously  set  upon  Greeks  and  Serbians, 
getting  well  beaten  by  them,  and  trampled 
on  by  Rumania.  Her  king  became  the 
Sultan's  friend,  although  the  Turks  had 
calmly  walked  back  into  Adrianople  and 
stayed  there.  But  Serbia,  beleaguered  still 
by  Austrian  intrigues,  not  given  an  outlet  on 
either  side,  yet  in  two  heroic  wars  a  conqueror, 
would  surely  not  cease  to  struggle  on  her  own 
behalf,  and  that  of  Slavdom.  Her  people 
were    the    vanguard    of    a    movement    ever 


254       THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 

pressing  on  towards  the  West;  they  claimed 
Bosnia-Herzegovina;  they  signalled  by  public 
journalism,  revolutionary  societies,  and  their 
mere  presence  on  the  frontier,  to  the  twenty- 
seven  millions  of  Slavs  held  in  bondage, 
frequently  mishandled,  by  the  German  and 
Magyar  minorities  who  ruled  with  unintel- 
ligent fiauteiir  in  Vienna  and  Buda-Pest. 

Well  might  these  Berchtolds,  Tiszas,  Fuer- 
stenbergs,  talk  of  a  menace  close  at  hand!  It 
is  not  to  be  denied.  The  analogy  between 
Piedmont  in  1858-1860  and  Serbia  since  1910 
is  very  striking.  In  both  cases  an  armed 
champion,  which  could  count  on  the  sjTnpathy 
of  millions  who  thought  themselves  "unre- 
deemed," was  standing  at  the  gates  of  the  prison. 
Germans  and  Magj^ars  would  not  conjure  away 
the  menace  by  giving  their  Croatians,  Slo- 
venes, Czechs,  and  the  rest  a  genuine  Home 
Rule.  Ascendancy  was  the  game;  yes,  even 
when  "Trialism,"  w^ith  which  Franz  Ferdinand 
seemed  to  be  coquetting,  got  its  columns  of 
advertisement  in  the  newspapers.  The  "Drang 
nach  Osten"  never  paused  for  a  day.  The 
Pan-German  idea  marched  on.  To  annihilate 
Serbia,  to  bribe  King  Ferdinand  wath  a  scrap 
of  Macedonia,  to  hustle  the  Greeks  out  of 
Salonica — these    were    steps    foreseen,    pre- 


LIGHTNING  OUT  OF  THE  EAST  255 

determined,  in  the  moving  programme  to 
which  Anatolia,  scored  through  by  the  Bagh- 
dad Railway,  gave  pledge  and  prospect  of 
success.  Who  could  prevent  it?  There  was 
only  one  Power  strong  enough  to  hinder  a 
new-making  of  the  world.  Its  name  was 
Britain. 

The  vision  of  a  Bulgarian  soldier.  Major 
Atanasov,  published  immediately  after  Aus- 
tria-Hungary had  declared  war  on  Serbia, 
throws  these  anticipations  into  a  golden  light. 
I  must  abridge,  but  I  cannot  pass  over  its 
salient  features.  "When  Russia  comes  to 
Serbia's  help,"  said  Atanasov,  "the  European 
War  will  break  out.  Two  great  Alliances 
and  two  small  groups  in  the  Balkans  will  rush 
into  conflict.  The  action  of  England  will  be 
decisive.  Now  Sir  Edward  Grey  has  made 
it  clear  that  England  does  not  see  eye  to  eye 
with  Russia  in  the  Balkan  problems.  Even 
in  European  questions  England  is  only  par- 
tially in  accord  with  Russia  and  France.  In 
Parliament  Sir  Edward  has  affirmed  her  in- 
dependence of  the  Dual  Alliance;  she  does 
not  intend  to  support  the  Franco-Russian  as- 
pirations. Therefore  she  will  remain  neutral. 
In  the  fields  of  battle  will  be  seen  Russia, 
France,  Rumania,  Serbia,  Greece  arrayed  on 


256       THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 

one  side;  and  the  Triple  Alliance  with  Bul- 
garia, Turkey,  Sweden  and  Norway  on  the 
other.  The  second  group  will  come  out  vic- 
torious. Turkey  will  assail  southern  Russia, 
the  Scandinavians  march  on  Petersburg,  the 
Bulgarians  fling  themselves  against  Greeks 
and  Serbs,  the  Albanians  on  Montenegro; 
and  if  need  be,  the  Austro-Hungarians  with 
ourselves  will  finish  Rumania.  Two  great 
final  campaigns  will  be  fought:  one  near 
Odessa  or  Kieff,  to  overthrow  the  Russians; 
in  the  other  the  western  German  army,  alone 
or  combined  with  Italian  forces,  will  execute 
a  victorious  march  through  France.  In  the 
naval  actions  following  the  Russian  fleet  will 
be  destroyed  in  the  Black  Sea,  the  French  by 
the  German  in  the  Atlantic;  and  the  shores 
of  France  will  be  occupied  by  the  triumphant 
Teutons." 

A  brave  fantasy,  this  of  the  Bulgarian  Ma- 
jor Atanasov!  It  may  appear  to  us  incredible 
that  he,  or  any  man,  should  picture  England 
as  a  still  watcher  from  Shakespeare's  cliff 
while  the  Teutonic,  Austro-Hungarian,  Bul- 
garo-Turk  expeditions  were  thus  resistlessly 
overrunning  the  nations  of  Europe;  but  he 
was  not  alone  in  his  misconception.  It  is 
repeated   with   studied   gentleness    in   Truth 


LIGHTNING  OUT  OF  THE  EAST  257 

about  Germany — that  official  manifesto  to 
which  Prince  von  Biilow,  and  Herr  Ballin 
of  the  Hamburg-American  line,  set  their 
names,  with  many  others  of  like  eminence. 
These  meek-eyed  disciples  of  Kultur  say 
mournfully,  "It  was  Germany's  conviction 
that  the  sincerity  of  Britain's  love  for  peace 
could  be  trusted." 

How  beautiful  a  thing  is  trust!  Britain 
had  a  Liberal  Cabinet  pledged  against  aggres- 
sion, as  Major  Atanasov  rightly  reports,  with 
a  passion  for  reducing  naval  and  army  esti- 
mates; it  included  a  Sir  Edward  Grey,  who 
could  not  imagine  that  there  were  wicked 
persons  in  rerum  natura  like  Bernhardi,  say- 
ing, "Our  German  people  must  be  taught 
that  the  maintenance  of  peace  never  can  or 
ought  to  be  the  goal  of  policy";  a  Lord 
Haldane,  whose  spiritual  home  was  on  the 
banks  of  the  Spree,  and  who  believed  that 
emulation  of  the  better  gifts  was  the  very 
and  only  aim  of  Junkerdom;  in  short,  it  was 
a  Cabinet  which,  on  Mr.  Lloyd  George's 
solemn  oath,  did  not  and  could  not  dream 
that  war  with  Germany  was  possible.  No 
wonder  if  Major  Atanasov  and  all  Bulgaria 
with  him,  as  well  as  Europe  at  large,  believed 
that  the  world  might  go  to  ruin,  but  Britain 


258       THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 

would  keep  the  peace.  At  any  rate  Germany 
so  believed,  and  Austria  too;  and  in  that 
faith  unfeigned  they  made  up  their  minds, 
for  reasons  military,  political,  economic,  and 
dynastic,  in  view  of  the  approaching  end  of 
Francis  Joseph,  and  the  growing  strength,  yet 
more  to  grow,  of  the  French  army  and  the 
Russian  artillery,  that  war  with  Slavdom 
should  be  started  not  later  than  August,  1914. 
The  evidence  for  this  fact  is  cumulative 
and  convincing.  A  pretext  had  to  be  found 
or  made.  The  ways  of  Providence  are  mys- 
terious. So  are  the  practices  of  autocratic 
governments.  On  Sunday,  June  28,  1914, 
the  Archduke  Franz  Ferdinand,  with  his  mor^ 
ganatic  wife,  the  Duchess  of  Hohenberg,  was 
killed  by  a  bomb  and  revolver  shots  in  the 
streets  of  Sarajevo,  the  Bosnian  capital,  by 
two  young  Bosnians  named  Cabrinovich  and 
Princip.  Chance  or  design  had  furnished  the 
Cabinet  of  Vienna  with  the  pretext  required. 
...  I  state  things  as  they  appeared  at  the 
time  to  those  who  had  been  long  intent  on 
the  gathering  South-E astern  storm.  Unde- 
signed coincidences  are  always  striking;  and 
that  preparations  known  to  have  been  elabor- 
ately made,  and  warnings  given  in  South 
Africa,  in  South  America,  in  Canada,  should 


LIGHTNING  OUT  OF  THE  EAST  259 


be  followed  at  the  strategic  moment  by  a 
murder  which  would  justify  the  most  peaceful 
State  in  the  severest  measures,  was  a  portent, 
divine  or  human,  visible  to  the  nations. 
Secret  trials  in  camera  do  not  elucidate  mys- 
teries of  this  complexion.  The  miscreant 
Cabrinovich  was  not  a  Serbian,  although  he 
had  obtained  the  instrument  of  his  crime  in 
Belgrade.  He  was  a  Bosnian,  and  the  Aus- 
trian police  looked  upon  him  before  the  murder 
as  a  harmless  sort  of  youth.  Moreover  Princip, 
the  other  assassin,  also  a  Bosnian,  acknowl- 
edged himself  to  have  been  for  years  an 
anarchist.  Finally,  the  annexation  in  1908 
of  the  two  provinces  had  brought  odium  on 
the  Archduke,  who  was  believed  to  have 
encouraged  Aerenthal,  or  even  to  have  set 
him  on  doing  it. 

These  allegations  might  seem  to  cast  no 
shadow  of  blame  on  the  Belgrade  Govern- 
ment, as  truly,  from  that  day  to  this,  and 
although  the  Serbian  archives  fell  later  into 
Austrian  hands,  the  foul  deed  has  never  been 
brought  home  to  them  by  one  shred  of  e\a- 
dence.  But  the  general  connection  of  "Greater 
Serbian"  schemes  with  this  particular  infamy 
was  taken  for  gi-anted.  Sarajevo  became  "the 
city  of  the  Great  War."    In  an  English  trial 


260       THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 

for  high  treason  the  accused,  as  we  saw  when 
Sir  Roger  Casement  was  tried  in  London, 
would  have  the  most  able  counsel  to  defend 
him,  and  cross-examination  would  probe  the 
weak  points  of  the  indictment.  Now  the 
Serbian  Government  was  on  its  trial,  but 
before  an  Austrian  court,  where  it  could  not 
get  a  hearing  and  could  not  cross-examine. 
What  matter?  superior  power  had  allowed 
the  undesigned  coincidence.  On  July  27  a 
foreign  diplomatist  said  to  Dr.  Dillon,  who 
was  then  in  Paris,  "The  German  Emperor 
thinks  the  moment  has  come  to  strike  a 
decisive  blow."  ^Ir.  F.  S.  Oliver  relates  that 
on  the  margin  of  a  document  concerning  the 
French  and  German  preparations  for  war, 
supplied  to  him  by  a  military  friend  at  the 
end  of  July  1913,  these  observations,  among 
others,  were  written:  "N.B.  Most  important. 
The  German  Bill  takes  immediate  effect.  The 
French  only  takes  effect  in  1916.  .  .  .  A  year 
from  now  will  be  the  critical  time."  To  the 
day  it  proved  so. 


CHAPTER  XII 


Belgium  saves  Europe 


WHEN  the  Austrian  Cabinet  launched 
its  ultimatum,  like  a  torpedo,  at 
Serbia,  on  July  23,  1914,  it  was  aiming 
to  destroy  a  greater  thing — the  independence 
and  the  conscience  of  Europe,  bound  in  one. 
This  was  the  felony  for  which  the  House 
of  Habsburg  must  pay  forfeit.  Let  us  make 
our  contention  plain.  In  a  powerful  article 
from  the  pen  of  Signor  Corradini,  who  created 
the  National  Italian  party,  and  who  leads  it 
with  singular  ability,  I  read,  "Delenda  est 
Austria"  ("Of  Austria  there  must  be  an  end"). 
The  word  is  very  sad  in  our  hearing,  on 
grounds  not  a  few;  yet  when  the  headsman 
utters,  "This  I  pronounce  for  doom,"  how 
can  we  gainsay  him?  Austria  received  from 
Providence,  as  long  ago  was  pointed  out,  the 
task  of  reconciling  German,  Slav,  and  Magyar 
in  defence  of  Christendom  against  the  un- 
speakable Turk.  This  magnificent  knight- 
hood Magyar  and  German  have  now  sold  in 

261 


262       THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 

exchange  for  their  idle,  showy,  unjust,  and 
essentially  cruel  exploiting  of  the  patient  Slav 
— their  beast  of  burden,  their  packhorse,  their 
scorn  and  sport  and  tribute-bearer  during  so 
many  ages.  The  Apostolic  crown  of  Hungary^ 
has  been  a  pretence,  the  Imperial  Roman  a 
mockeiy.  Entrenched  in  the  heart  of  Europe, 
they  have  divided  the  nations  which  they 
misgoverned.  And  the  Holy  See  may  well 
rebuke  the  successor  of  St.  Stephen  for  his 
aid  and  support  of  the  Turkish  power,  which 
holds  in  durance  Jerusalem  and  Nazareth. 

At  long  last,  beaten  times  without  number, 
and  now  smitten  to  servitude  by  aspiring 
Hohenzollern,  these  Habsburgs  make  them- 
selves the  base  instruments  of  a  Power  that 
uses,  despises,  and  will  cheat  them,  when  they 
have  seized  as  its  catspaw  in  the  business  of 
pulling  Eastern  chestnuts  out  of  a  roaring  fire. 
What  shame  could  be  greater  than  the  shame 
of  Austria?  But  yet,  "audi  f acinus  majoris 
abollae,"  listen  to  their  most  atrocious  crime. 
They  have  loved  and  made  a  lie — the  lie  of  an 
ultimatum  to  Serbia,  whose  terms,  though 
fulfilled,  they  were  resolute  not  to  accept; 
while  they  knew,  with  crystalline  clearness, 
that  if  Russia  demurred  to  it,  the  whole  of 
Europe   would   be   flung    into    the    seething 


BELGIUM  SAVES  EUROPE     263 

t  ^ 

cauldron  where  the  nations,  their  men,  riches, 
subsistence,  and  the  very  land  that  bore  them, 
are  all  melting  in  a  horrible  conflict  and  con- 
fusion. It  was  Austria  that  began  this  devil's 
dance;  and  Austria,  which  is  the  House  of 
Habsburg,  should  be  handed  over  to  the  ex- 
ecutioner. It  is  a  righteous  doom  which  Si- 
gnor  Corradini  has  registered,  after  the  Allies 
had  spoken  it. 

I  come  back  to  the  menaced  independence 
of  Europe,  and  to  its  conscience,  already  in 
danger.  These  were  the  great  issues  at  stake 
in  July  1914;  not  Serbia,  whose  complicity 
in  the  death  of  Franz  Ferdinand,  were  it 
proved,  could  have  been  fitly  punished  without 
setting  the  world  on  fire.  As  Dr.  Dillon 
reported  on  July  24,  after  the  ultimatum  had 
been  dispatched,  "No  statesman  in  either  half 
of  the  Empire  holds  King  Peter's  Government 
responsible  for  this  revolting  crime."  The 
real  question,  he  went  on  to  point  out,  was 
one  of  pure  force ;  should  Serbia  break  up  the 
Dual  Monarchy,  or  Austria,  by  imposing  its 
will  at  Belgrade,  put  an  end  to  the  Slav  peril 
in  that  direction.  Serbia,  like  Bulgaria,  held 
a  key  position;  hence  the  importance  of  both. 
However,  Vienna  wanted  more — to  be  para- 
mount in  the  Balkans  and  get  down  to  Salo- 


264       THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 

nica.  The  ultimatum,  then,  made  a  feint  of 
unreal  language;  and  Europe,  for  a  crowded 
week,  from  July  23  to  July  31,  1914— the 
judgment  week  of  the  old  order  of  things — 
held  its  "World's  Debate"  in  a  misleading 
form,  as  our  Courts  used  to  hear  arguments 
about  fictitious  persons,  John  a  Nokes  and 
John  a  Stiles,  by  way  of  deciding  vital  matters 
of  fortunes  and  estates. 

Hence  came  the  defeat  which  Prussian 
chicanery  was  able  to  inflict  on  Sir  Edward 
Grey,  and  thus  to  start  the  War  on  terms 
most  favourable  to  Germany.  Out  of  this 
net  thrown  over  his  head  the  British  diplo- 
matist never  got  himself  free.  That  England 
would  not  defend  Serbia  he  declared  immedi- 
ately; and  that  he  was  concerned  only  to 
preserve  the  general  peace.  But  how?  By 
proposing  a  Conference  of  the  four  friendly 
but  neutral  Powers — Britain,  France,  Italy, 
and  Germany.  This  was  not  only  to  invite, 
but  to  secure,  checlonate  against  his  own  side. 
The  Kaiser  could  always  evade  a  Conference ; 
and  he  did  so  by  merely  marking  time.  It 
was  the  hour  when  England's  decision  was 
called  for.    England  would  not  decide. 

England  waited,  while  Russia  by  the  mouth 
of  M.   Sazonov,  and  France  by  the  cogent 


BELGIUM  SAVES  EUROPE     265 


representations  of  MM.  Cambon  in  London 
and  Berlin,  showed  with  admirable  lucidity 
that  "Austria's  conduct  was  immoral  and 
provocative";  that  "she  would  never  have 
taken  such  action  had  not  Germany  first  been 
consulted";  that  these  things  amounted  to  a 
virtual  state  of  war,  in  which  France  would 
fulfil  all  the  obligations  entailed  by  her  alliance 
with  Russia; — and  now,  what  did  England 
mean  to  do?  Sir  G.  Buchanan  replied  at 
Petersburg  that  we  had  "no  direct  interests 
in  Serbia."  M.  Sazonov  repeated  with  equal 
patience  and  insistence  that  it  was  not  a 
Serbian  question  except  in  show;  the  Great 
War  was  at  the  doors.  Still  the  correspon- 
dence rolled  forward  on  John  a  Nokes  and 
John  a  Stiles.  The  attitude  of  Britain  was 
benevolent  and  negative;  Sir  Edward  Grey 
continued,  as  he  loved  to  do,  his  "temperate 
language,"  while  war  came  down  in  a  furious 
whirlwind.    What  did  it  all  mean  ? 

It  meant  that  a  Liberal-Socialist  Cabinet 
was  saying,  like  Mr.  W.  J.  Bryan  at  Wash- 
ington later,  "There  will  be  no  war  so  long 
as  I  am  in  office;  I  do  not  want  it;  therefore 
it  shall  not  be."  Sir  Edward  Grey  wrote  as 
the  Cabinet  ordered.  Alliance  there  was  none 
compelling  us  to  defend  France;  but,  as  we 


266       THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 


had  in  effect  sent  her  fleet  away  to  the 
Mediterranean,  we  pledged  ourselves,  when 
hostilities  were  on  the  point  of  breaking  out, 
to  protect  her  northern  shores  from  an  attack 
by  Germany.  Closer  than  that  we  would  not 
go  to  realities,  lest  they  should  dissipate  our 
dream  of  peace  with  a  thunderclap.  Never 
was  a  British  Cabinet  more  innocent  of  offence 
towards  its  neighbour.  But  the  neighbour 
was  Attila. 

"Germany  strikes,"  said  Lord  Roberts  to  a 
sneering  world,  "when  Germany's  hour  has 
struck."  Now  was  the  hour,  fixed  according 
to  good  evidence,  as  we  have  learnt,  at  least 
a  year  previously;  but  almost  chosen  by  the 
unfortunate  victims  themselves — their  affairs 
in  confusion,  their  preparations  not  made  or 
far  from  complete,  while  England  hung  back 
on  Quaker  principles,  and  her  politicians  had 
been  hurried  by  strikes,  suffragettes,  Ulster, 
and  the  inimours  of  civil  war  in  Ireland, 
from  crisis  to  crisis,  none  of  which  did  they 
seem  able  to  master.  France,  even  to  her 
best  friends,  offered  a  disquieting  spectacle. 
Her  Government  was  in  commission.  The 
President  and  Prime  Minister  were  review- 
ing Russian  troops  in  Petersburg,  with  work- 
men's   strikes,    engineered   from   the   quarter 


BELGIUM  SAVES  EUROPE    267 

we  know,  growling  behind  them,  on  the  23rd 
of  July,  when  the  Austrian  ultimatum  was 
delivered  at  Belgrade.  Had  JVIr.  Asquith 
instructed  Sir  Edward  Grey  to  tell  the  Kaiser 
plainly  that  England  meant  peace  to  be  kept; 
and  that,  if  it  were  broken,  she  would  do  as 
in  fact  she  did  on  the  4th  of  August  immedi- 
ately following,  she  would  have  acted  in  her 
old  spirit,  not  without  happier  consequences 
than  were  inevitable  when  a  great  nation 
looks  on  while  its  elected  ministers  play  at 
blindman's  buff. 

Sir  Edward  Grey's  toned-down  language 
made  on  the  Kaiser  just  such  an  impression 
as  men  not  so  invincibly  innocent  would  have 
predicted.  He  judged  that  England,  having 
jogged  along  one  mile,  might  be  led  to  travel 
twain  on  the  road  of  benevolent,  that  is  to 
say,  pro-German  neutrality.  Kicking  aside 
Serbia  with  Sarajevo,  which  had  helped  him 
thus  far,  he  ventured  on,  not  one  but  several, 
"infamous  proposals."  Would  his  beloved 
British  stand  aside  while  he  shattered  France 
and  appropriated  her  colonies?  Would  they 
let  his  armies  pass  thi'ough  Belgium,  whose 
integrity,  after  he  had  used  her  roads  and 
railways,  should  be  assured  her,  and  good 
passage-money  be  promised  her?     No  critic. 


268       THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 

however  severe,  has  charged  the  Liberal  Cabi- 
net of  July  1914  with  high  crimes  and  misde- 
meanours. They  answered  like  English  gentle- 
men, but  in  words  too  mild,  and  still  hugging 
their  neutrality,  their  "freedom  of  action." 
Speaking  off  book.  Sir  Edward  at  last  warned 
the  charming  Prince  Lichnowski  that,  if 
France  were  attacked,  the  Kaiser  would  do 
well  not  to  reckon  on  Britain's  folded  arms.  It 
is  a  proof  how  little  the  Germans  feared  this 
pacific  Government  that  so  gentle  a  caution 
should  have  flashed  into  the  Prince's  eyes  a 
wonder  never  felt  before.  But  this  alarming 
view,  though  telegraphed  to  the  Wilhelm- 
strasse,  never  reached  the  Kaiser.  He  put  a 
deadly  question  in  Paris;  he  sent,  on  July  31, 
an  ultimatum  to  his  friend  the  Tsar.  And  on 
August  1  he  declared  war  against  Russia. 

But  even  on  that  day  of  August  the  Cabinet 
refused  to  make  common  cause  with  France. 
Posterity  will  not  believe  it.  Britain,  as  repre- 
sented by  her  Government,  was  suffering  from 
an  agony  of  indecision.  The  Stock  Exchange 
was  closed;  the  Bank  rate  went  up  to  10  per 
cent.;  and  people  have  talked  ever  since  of 
that  August  "Black  Saturday."  In  compari- 
son with  what  might  have  been,  had  the 
Cabinet  gone  on  debating  but  not  concluding. 


BELGIUM  SAVES  EUROPE    269 

these  financial  earthquakes  were  of  no  account. 
Like  the  Admiralty,  our  then  Government 
was  "organised  for  peace."  It  had  no  military 
sense  whatever,  any  more  than  it  had  an 
Imperial  outlook.  It  was  a  meeting  of  Town 
Councillors  presiding  in  the  House  of  Com- 
mons. By  rare  good  fortune  the  Tory  leaders 
in  London,  Mr.  Balfour  and  Mr.  Bonar  Law, 
translated  the  European  peril  in  terms  of  a 
message  that  signified,  "If  you  will  not  de- 
clare war  on  behalf  of  France  and  Belgium, 
we  will  turn  you  out."  The  spell  was  broken. 
But  something  gi'ander  than  party  manoeuvres 
now  rose  upon  the  scene,  dazzling  mankind 
with  light  of  another  sphere.  While  Britain 
was  hesitating  to  save  Europe,  the  little  nation 
of  Belgium  stood  forth  in  defence  of  its 
honour  and  independence.  Serbia  was  not  to 
be  the  champion.    Belgium  faced  Germany. 

Belgium,  a  Catholic  country,  modern  and 
democratic,  with  a  King  and  a  Constitution, 
*'Le  roi,  la  loi,  la  liberte,"  drew  the  eyes  of 
Europe  from  the  Danube  towards  its  historic 
battlefields,  where  the  World's  Debate  had 
been,  over  and  over  again,  decided.  To  per- 
sist in  my  metaphor  of  light,  suddenly  a  rift 
appeared  in  the  war-clouds ;  the  heavens  broke 
open  to  their  highest;  and  we  were  gazing 


270       THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 

into  fathomless  depths  of  ether.  The  South- 
Eastern  problem  dropped  out  of  sight  for 
England;  we  had  discovered  where  our  duty 
called  us.  To  begin  a  European  conflict  be- 
cause Serbia  had  provoked  Austria- Hungary, 
and  was  likely  to  undergo  penalties  brought 
on  her  head  by  guilty  deeds,  would  never  have 
been  allowed  by  the  British  Parliament  or 
people.  Yet  such  seemed  to  be  the  problem, 
so  long  as  Vienna  kept  hammering  at  retribu- 
tion for  the  crime  of  Serajevo.  Besides,  it 
can  unhappily  never  be  forgotten  that  trage- 
dies of  an  Oriental  ferocity  had  cast  a  gloom 
over  the  Konak  of  Belgrade;  and  that,  in 
consequence,  Serbia  with  its  Court  lay  for 
years  excommunicate  from  the  West.  The 
claims  and  rights  of  Belgium  were  perfect 
before  the  Law  of  Nations.  Some  Divine 
Power  might  have  kept  her  in  reserve — and 
why  not  boldly  say  that  so  it  was? — for  the 
clear  demonstration  of  justice  and  of  the 
Allied  cause,  which,  after  all,  was  free  from 
deceit  and  ambition,  as  the  wide  range  of 
documents  now  accessible  proves  convinc- 
ingly. Belgium,  then,  was  a  test  and  crucial 
experiment,  simple  as  the  elements  of  law 
and  fact  on  which  its  defence  rested.  The 
"matter  of  Britain"  could  at  once  be  taken 


BELGIUM  SAVES  EUROPE    271 

out   of   sophistical   peace-wranglings.      Even 
the  Cabinet  saw  its  way  to  a  decision. 

The  case  was  this.  By  treaties  of  1839  and 
1870,  to  which  all  the  Great  Powers,  including 
Prussia,  had  set  their  hands,  the  Belgian 
kingdom  enjoyed  perpetual  neutrality.  The 
obligation  laid  upon  Europe  was  never  to 
violate  this  zone  of  peace;  while  on  the  Bel- 
gians it  was  incumbent  to  protect  their  bounds 
from  foreign  intrusion  with  all  their  resources. 
France  had  no  temptation  to  invade  a  country 
serving  thus,  after  the  manner  of  a  bastion, 
where  she  lay  exposed  to  attack  from  Ger- 
many. But  the  German  General  Staff,  on 
their  principles,  took  the  opposite  view;  and, 
as  may  be  read  in  Bernhardi's  volume  on  The 
A^ext  War,  they  laid  their  plans  accordingly. 
Moreover,  great  strategic  railways  had  been 
carried  up  to  the  Belgian  frontier,  which  could 
have  no  other  purpose  than  the  transport  of 
men  and  munitions  on  a  vast  scale  in  the 
direction  of  Liege.  These  things  were  mani- 
fest  to  all  men.  Warnings,  too,  came,  though 
inconveniently  late,  which  led  to  a  secret 
session  of  Parliament  and  the  introduction 
of  national  service,  little  as  democracy  in  Bel- 
gium favoiu'cd  it.  Of  this  situation  Dr. 
Sarolea,  whose  knowledge  is  derived  at  first 


272       THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 

hand  from  the  authorities,  will  furnish  the 
most  persuasive  summary.  Nothing  can  be 
more  certain  than  that  the  Belgian  Govern- 
ment, and  his  IMajesty  King  Albert,  had  but 
one  desire :  to  be  left  in  their  neutrality  by  all 
the  belligerents. 

And,  as  I  said,  France  could  only  wish  the 
same.  Her  defences  on  that  side  resembled, 
from  the  nature  of  the  country,  fortifications 
on  a  bilhard  table.  Great  Britain  had  an 
overpowering  interest  in  Antwerp  (and,  if  she 
had  known  it,  in  Zeebriigge,  the  insignificant 
port  of  Bruges)  ;  but  she  would  best  secure  it 
by  the  absolute  exemption  of  that  great  mart 
and  trade-centre  from  the  storms  of  war.  So 
true  is  this  reflection  that  not  until  months 
had  passed  did  it  occur  to  the  German  factory 
of  fiction  to  bring  against  this  country  the 
charge  of  intending  somehow  to  occupy  Bel- 
gian territory.  Such  lies  are  like  the  father 
that  begot  them,  gross  Falstaffian  inventions. 
Had  the  Prussian  Chancellor  dreamt  of  any- 
thing smiilar,  he  would  never,  on  July  29, 
1914,  have  proposed  to  Sir  Edward  Bunsen 
by  England's  good  leave  to  march  German 
hosts  through  Belgium  into  France.  This 
one  observation  disposes  of  the  stories,  fabri- 


BELGIUM  SAVES  EUROPE    273 

f 

cated  too  late,  of  Belgian  conspiracies  against 
the  Kaiser  with  perfidious  Albion. 

We  will  now  look  into  the  general  situation 
more  closely,  as  its  drift  and  logic  were  summed 
up  by  Sir  Edward  Grey  in  dispatches  on 
July  29  and  30,  when  Britain's  negative  was 
changing  under  stress  of  events  to  a  categorical 
affirmative,  and  the  future  of  all  nations  was 
determined.  From  these  resolutely  simple 
documents  we  gather  as  follows.  The  problem 
of  war  and  peace  offered  two  aspects,  an  East- 
ern and  a  Western,  Germany  being  the  assail- 
ant on  both  fronts.  The  Eastern  question  had 
become  a  dispute  between  Austria  and  Serbia, 
leading  up  to  the  larger  one  of  Teuton  against 
Slav,  each  intent  on  winning  supremacy  in  the 
Balkans.  Great  Britain  would  take  a  hand  in 
neither.  But  the  Western  concerned  Germany 
and  France.  What  then?  Sir  Edward  wrote 
to  Sir  F.  Bertie  in  Paris  these  remarkable 
words:  "If  Germany  became  involved  and 
France  became  involved,  we  had  not  made  up 
our  minds  what  we  should  do;  it  was  a  case 
that  we  should  have  to  consider.  .  .  .  We  were 
free  from  engagements,  and  we  should  have 
to  decide  what  British  interests  required  us 
to  do.'*     Astonishing!     For  ever  since  King 


274      THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 

Edward's  journeyings  on  the  errand  of  ending 
our  splendid  isolation,  this  question  was  staring 
the  successive  British  Premiers  in  the  face. 

But  while  Sir  Edward  in  London  was 
"considering,"  the  German  Chancellor,  "just 
returned  from  Potsdam,"  was  helping  him  and 
his  colleagues  to  "make  up  their  minds." 
What  Herr  von  Bethmann-Hollweg,  the 
Kaiser's  mouthpiece,  proposed  that  same  eve- 
ning, the  29th,  and  how  it  was  welcomed  by 
the  British  Ministry,  we  read  in  Sir  Edward's 
reply  of  July  30  to  Sir  E.  Goschen.  Would 
England  stand  aside,  while  French  colonies 
were  taken,  and  France  was  beaten  but  not 
farther  dismembered?  Would  we  bargain 
away  "whatever  obligations  or  interest  we 
had  as  regarded  the  neutrality  of  Belgium"? 
Would  we  bind  ourselves  to  Germany  by  a 
"general  agreement"  to  be  neutral  ourselves? 

These  were  the  Kaiser's  requisitions.  They 
spared  us  the  insult — and  that  is  curiously 
characteristic  on  both  sides — of  hinting  at  an 
equivalent  for  our  betrayal  of  Eiu-ope.  But 
the  German  Chancellor  was  so — shall  I  say 
obtuse  or  adroit? — as  to  inquire  if  we  should 
continue  to  be  neutral,  while  he  was  in  the 
very  act  of  violating  neutrality.  Sir  Edward 
Grey  answered,  not  by  publishing  these  "in- 


BELGIUM  SAVES  EUROPE    275 


famous  proposals"  to  the  world,  as  Pitt  or 
Palmerston  would  have  done,  but  in  a  mild, 
though  firm  staccato.    "It  would  be  a  disgrace 
to  us,"  he  wrote,  "to  make  this  bargain  with 
Germany  at  the  expense  of  France,  a  disgrace 
from  which  the  good  fame  of  this  country 
would  never  recover."    And  "we  could  not  en- 
tertain that  bargain  either,"  by  which  Belgium 
should  be  left  to  its  fate.     We  could  not  tie 
our  hands  by  a  "future  general  neutrality." 
But  if  Germany  would  work  with  us  to  pre- 
serve the  peace  of  Europe,  Sir  Edward  Grey 
declared  that  he  would  "promote  some  arrange- 
ment to  which  Germany  could  be  a  party,  by 
which  she  could  be  assured  that  no  aggressive 
or  hostile  policy  would  be  pursued  against  her 
or  her  aUies  by  France,  Russia,  and  ourselves, 
jointly  or  separately."    Thus  far  the  voice  of 
England  spoke,  of  that  England 

"Whose  white  investments  figure  innocence. 
The  dove  and  very  blessed  spirit  of  peace." 

But  they  prove  it  also.  I  stake  the  defence 
of  the  Allies  on  Sir  Edward  Grey's  transpar- 
ent candour,  which  showed  to  the  fire-eaters  of 
the  German  General  Staff  how  little  an  attack 
was  contemplated  on  the  Fatherland  which 
they  have  since  delivered  over  to  blood  and 
ruin.  Still,  though  Britain's  Foreign  Secretary 


276       THE  WOKLD'S  DEBATE 

had  gently  waved  aside  their  ruffian  demands, 
they  concluded  that  so  good  a  Christian  would 
never  fight;  and  they  fixed  a  term  for  the 
invasion  of  Belgium.  The  hundred  threads 
of  intrigue  and  preparation  had  run  together 
into  this  enterprise,  so  facile  and  prompt,  as 
they  believed,  of  execution,  giving  them  a 
short  cut  into  the  heart  of  France  and  an  easy 
road  to  Paris.  The  War  would  be  over  in 
seven  weeks,  about  as  long  as  the  campaign 
which  subdued  Austria,  July- August  1866. 
These  were  the  confident  anticipations  of 
Berlin. 

The  last  day  of  July  1914,  and  of  the  old 
Europe  we  have  loiown,  dawned  in  clear  sun- 
shine. But  England's  heart  was  moved,  and 
the  heart  of  her  people,  as  the  trees  of  the 
wood  are  moved  with  the  wind.  On  the  war- 
anvil  Thor's  hammer  struck  until  it  rang  again. 
Germans,  Russians,  French,  were  on  march 
in  myriads  to  the  frontiers.  Krieg-viohil  was 
everj'ivhere  in  those  lands  the  order  of  the 
day.  I  have  already  mentioned  the  German 
ultimatmn  to  the  Tsar.  Still  Sir  Edward 
flew  his  doves  of  peace  all  round,  but  kept  his 
hands  free.  Offers  from  Berlin  to  guarantee 
(oh,  soothing  word!)  the  integrity  of  France 
and  her  colonies  were  the  last  gestures  of  that 


BELGIUM  SAVES  EUROPE    277 

hypnotism  which  longed  to  keep  Britain  in 
her  magic  sleep.  On  Saturday  evening,  about 
five  p.m.,  Germany  declared  war  on  Russia. 

The  throbbing  nerve  of  the  situation  was 
now  Belgium.  Our  unwearied  Secretary  had 
asked  for  assurances  from  France  and  Prussia 
that  they  would  respect  its  sacred  character. 
France  gave  hers  at  once;  the  Prussian  Secre- 
tary, Von  Jagow,  must  consult  his  master. 
Then,  on  the  system  of  double  entry  familiar 
to  us  from  instances  already  cited,  the  Minister 
of  Germany  at  Brussels  was  reiterating  on 
Sunday,  August  2,  his  pledge  that  the  Belgian 
Government  need  fear  no  violence,  while  an 
ultiniatum  was  flying  towards  him,  which  he 
delivered  with  shame  a  couple  of  hours  later, 
requiring  that  Belgium  should  "cease  to  be 
a  nation  and  become  a  thoroughfare."  If  she 
refused,  war  with  its  consequences  would  follow 
without  delay.  "The  choice  laid  on  Belgium," 
I  wrote  in  January  1915,  "was  to  lose  her 
independence,  or  to  join  in  a  treacherous 
side-blow  at  France,  which  would  mean  that 
country's  downfall.  And  Belgium  stood  alone. 
Her  attitude  was  heroic,  for  her  decision 
was  instantly  taken.  From  that  moment  the 
German  General  Staff  condemned  her  to  death 
by  burning.  .  .  .  Belgium  would  not  unlock 


278       THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 

her  gates;  they  must  be  forced  open.  The 
cannon  thundering  against  Liege  announced 
that  the  greatest  crime  of  modem  history  had 
entered  on  its  first  hour." 

King  Albert  appealed  on  Monday,  August  3, 
to  Great  Britain  as  signatory  of  the  Treaties 
of  1839  and  1870,  to  "safeguard  the  integrity 
of  Belgium."  Alas!  we  were  not  ready;  but 
we  could  respect  our  plighted  word.  Historical 
scenes  followed  in  the  British  Parliament. 
Any  large  prophetic  vision  of  the  European 
crisis  and  all  it  held  of  revolution,  of  new 
creation,  was  not  to  be  expected  in  the  House 
of  Commons;  but  a  certain  practical  sense, 
and  loyalty  to  our  engagements,  bound  these 
afternoons  to  the  splendid  and  stately  times 
of  the  Long  Parliament. 

For  it  was  the  same  dispute,  carried  beyond 
our  shores  to  a  world  lying  in  thought  and 
manners  far  from  us.  Instead  of  the  in- 
violable Five  Members  a  nation  craved  its 
rights  at  the  hands  of  this  High  Court.  A 
greater  than  Charles  I  by  number  of  subjects, 
wealth  stored  up,  armies  raised  and  trained, 
fleets  called  into  being,  diplomacy  world-wide, 
and  spies  ubiquitous,  came  to  fetch  his  victims 
with  a  truculent  band  of  incendiaries,  woman- 
ravishers,  priest-slayers — the  "Furious  Host" 


BELGIUM  SAVES  EUROPE     279 

riding  to  victory;  and  he  was  met  by  a  calin 
statement  in  the  Commons'  House  of  Britain. 
Her  Fleet  alone  was  ready;  it  had  begun 
its  watch  in  the  North  Sea.  The  riddle  of 
the  sands  would  now  receive  its  solution. 
Belgium  had  cleared  the  air.  For  autocracy, 
calling  itself  necessity,  knew  no  law. 

"Phrases,"  I  said  in  the  article  from  which 
I  have  borrowed,  "soon  to  become  immortal, 
were  trembling  on  the  lips  of  Prussian 
ministers — 'a  scrap  of  paper,'  'time  is  our 
asset,'  'necessity  has  no  law,'  'we  must  hack 
our  way  through.'"  And  the  confession  is 
on  record,  as  in  enduring  granite,  which  on 
August  4,  1914,  the  Chancellor  made:  "Our 
troops  have  occupied  Luxemburg,  and  perhaps 
[but  he  knew  it]  are  already  on  Belgian  soil. 
Meine  Herren,  that  is  contrary  to  the  dictates 
of  International  Law.  .  .  .  We  tnew,  however, 
that  France  stood  ready  for  the  invasion  [this 
the  speaker  did  not  know,  for  it  was  not  true]. 
France  could  wait,  but  we  could  not  wait  .  .  . 
so  we  were  compelled  to  override  the  just 
protest  of  the  Luxemburg  and  Belgian  Govern- 
ments. The  wrong — I  speak  openly — that  we 
are  committing  we  will  endeavour  to  make 
good  as  soon  as  our  military  goal  has  been 
reached." 


280       THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 

This  was  Charles  I,  muttering  in  his  cloak 
an  apology  for  invading  the  Commons,  his 
armed  gang  at  the  doors,  while  the  members 
rounded  in  his  ears,  "Privilege,  privilege!" 
To-day,  May  5,  1917,  I  read  that  after  dis- 
cussion in  the  Reichstag  the  German  Govern- 
ment proposes  to  break  up  Belgium  (whose 
motto  is,  JL'union  fait  la  force)  into  Flemish 
and  Walloon,  province  against  province,  but 
with  a  Prussian  general  to  hold  them  well  in 
hand.  As  King  Albert  would  not  put  his 
country  up  to  auction,  it  is  to  be  sold  in 
lots.  The  methods  of  autocracy  are  indeed 
convincing. 

But  by  her  sheer  and  simple  heroism  Bel- 
gium had  saved  the  conscience  of  Europe. 
She  would  save  its  independence  also,  as 
events  were  about  to  prove  in  the  face  of  an 
astonished  and  admiring  world. 

On  Tuesday,  August  the  Fourth — a  day,  as 
we  have  seen,  memorable  in  the  French  annals 
of  1789 — England  despatched  to  Berlin  an 
ultimatum,  the  object  of  which  was  to  secure 
the  Belgian  kingdom  from  Gemian  attack. 
It  was  too  late.  At  seven  o'clock  Sir  E. 
Goschen  received  his  passports.  At  midnight, 
Berlin  time,  our  war  began.  The  guardian 
of  the  freedom  of  Europe  had  been  compelled 


BELGIUM  SAVES  EUROPE     281 


by  Belgium's  loyalty  to  her  pledges,  and  by 
Germany's  disregard  of  her  honour,  to  take 
up  arms  against  the  House  of  HohenzoUern. 
Not  Shakespeare  himself  could  have  devised 
a  more  perfect  situation,  or  have  kept  the 
respective  characters  so  true  to  themselves. 


CHAPTER  XIII 


The  Triumph  of  ''Kultur" 


NOTHING  is  so  difficult  to  subdue," 
said  Aristotle,  "as  injustice  in  arms.'* 
Kultur,  or  mechanism  made  perfect,  was  now 
to  give  the  world  assurance  of  a  man — of 
millions  of  men — turned  out  by  its  training 
on  Belgium  and  Europe.  "Time  is  the  Ger- 
man asset,"  replied  Herr  von  Jagow,  when 
Sir  E.  Goschen  implored  him  in  England's 
name  to  respect  Prussia's  own  sacred  word. 
And  the  Chancellor,  Herr  von  Bethmann- 
Hollweg,  called  the  treaty  which  guaranteed 
Belgian  neutrality  "a  scrap  of  paper" — the 
winged  word  that  flew  round  Europe,  and  is 
flying  still.  Injustice,  armed  as  never  before, 
crying  out  that  it  could  not  spare  the  time 
to  be  just,  fell  upon  Liege,  and  on  August 
20,  1914,  entered  Brussels  in  triumph.  The 
Prussian  Guard,  marching  with  its  high  and 
ridiculous  "goose-step,"  went  up  by  the  Cathe- 
dral of  Ste.-Gudule,  along  by  the  Place  Royale, 
and  so  to  the  park  and  palace — looking  tran- 

282 


THE  TRIUMPH  OF    'KULTUR"     283 

quillity  itself  under  the  bright  heavens — from 
which  a  hurricane  of  fire  over  the  land  had 
forced  King  Albert  to  withdraw.  Europe  felt 
the  wound  to  its  honour.  It  could  not  protect 
Belgium.  And  we,  who  remembered  delightful 
days  in  the  fair  city  and  the  royal  park,  were 
desolate.  Now  was  the  second  half  of  Aris- 
totle's denunciation  to  be  fulfilled.  All  the 
world  should  see  how  the  nation  that  abused 
its  "prudence  and  valour"  would  be  "the 
most  wicked,  the  most  cruel,  the  most  lustful, 
and  most  gluttonous  being  imaginable." 

A  new  word  rang  through  the  air,  Schreck- 
lichkeit.  It  was  the  German  equivalent  of  a 
French  Convention  formula,  "Terror  the  order 
of  the  day."  My  first  suspicion  of  the  coming 
portent  was  stirred  by  the  brutal  handling  of 
Tirlemont,  a  place  dear  to  friends  of  mine,  and 
associated  in  my  wanderings  with  flowers  in 
bloom.  But  soon  we  had  to  recite  a  chaplet 
of  sorrow — the  rosary  which,  beginning  with 
Liege,  took  in  Vise,  Aerschot,  Termonde, 
Louvain,  Malines,  Dinant,  Roulers,  Courtrai, 
Ypres.  To  them  we  added  Alost,  Lierre, 
Mons,  Namur.  Such  was  the  object-lesson 
in  burning,  pillage,  slaughter,  rape,  and  havoc, 
with  details  not  to  be  uttered,  given  deliberately 
and  with  scientific  precision,  by  the  German 


284       THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 

invaders,  to  every  people  under  heaven.  The 
"War-Book"  ordered  it:  "A  war  conducted 
with  energy  cannot  be  directed  merely  against 
the  combatants  of  the  Enemy  State,  and  the 
positions  they  occupy.  It  will  and  must 
seek  to  destroy  the  total  moral  and  material 
resources  of  that  State." 

Thus  Von  Moltke:  "All  should  be  attacked 
— ^not  the  military  alone,  but  finances,  railways, 
means  of  subsistence,  even  the  prestige  of  the 
enemy's  Government."  And  Bismarck:  "The 
nation  must  be  sickened  of  the  war.  Leave 
them  nothing  but  their  eyes  to  weep  with." 
When  the  grim  Chancellor  was  entreated  not 
to  starve  Paris  into  surrender,  he  laughed  the 
proposal  to  scorn,  and  said:  "I  wonder  that 
any  of  the  pretty  French  babies  are  still  alive 
inside  the  lines."  The  "War-Book"  too  smiles 
at  any  one  who  should  try  to  put  the  brake 
on  "the  unrestricted  and  reckless  application 
of  all  the  available  means  for  the  conduct  of 
hostilities."  There  is  no  such  thing  as  a  "law 
of  war";  there  is  only  "fear  of  reprisals." 
Most  certain  it  is,  after  a  thousand  days  of 
horror,  that  not  accident  but  policy  made  the 
Germans  in  Belgium  "stable  their  horses  in 
churches,  destroy  municipal  buildings,  defile 
the  hearth,  and  bombard  cathedrals."     Body 


THE  TRIUMPH  OF  "KULTUR"     285 

and  soul,  the  people  were  to  be  broken.  Name- 
less outrages,  reported  but  impossible  of  de- 
scription, with  incendiarism  repeated  from  end 
to  end  of  this  brave,  this  devastated  country, 
were  done  by  command.  "As  our  princes  tell 
us,  so  we  do,"  said  Heine.  The  Kaiser  vio- 
lated, burnt,  and  ruined  Belgium,  like  some 
monstrous  Hindu  god  with  ten  thousand  arms, 
each  bearing  a  lighted  brand.  He,  as  if  alone, 
as  if  omnipotent. 

The  fate  of  Louvain  shocked  humanity. 
Then  the  whole  of  Belgium  seemed  to  be 
wrapt  in  a  fiery  cloud.  Next  the  hail  of 
projectiles  struck  beautiful  Rheims;  and  its 
cathedral,  the  French  Westminster  Abbey, 
was  ruthlessly  dealt  with  like  a  great  lady 
whom  a  band  of  drunken  ruffians  had  seized 
and  stripped.  As  the  country  and  its  treasures, 
so  the  people.  For  months  the  system  of 
terror  went  on,  leaving  no  humiliation  of  de- 
fenceless men,  women,  and  children  untried. 
Seven  millions  of  Belgians  would  have  starved 
to  death  if  English  and  American  relief  had 
not  come  between  them  and  famine.  On  the 
fall  of  Antwerp  at  least  half  a  million  fled 
across  the  border  into  Holland.  We  sheltered 
in  this  country  more  than  one  hundred  thousand 
homeless  fugitives,  many  of  whom  had  seen 


286       THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 

their  towns  and  villages  set  on  fire  with  in- 
flammable disks  and  grenades  by  the  German 
soldiery. 

These  things  were  not  freaks  of  violence; 
and  the  writers  who  at  that  time  apolo- 
gised for  the  General  Staff  as  unable  to 
prevent  them,  may  now  read — with  remorse, 
I  hope,  as  they  read — the  instructions  issued 
to  regiments  falling  back  in  France  on  the 
Hindenburg  line,  that  they  should  utterly 
make  a  desert  of  the  country  they  are  giving 
up.  How  scrupulously  the  work  has  been 
carried  into  effect,  our  advancing  troops  bear 
witness.  No  German  authority  dreams  of 
apologising  for  it.  Belgium  in  1914,  and 
France  in  1917,  show  the  consistent  logic 
of  destruction,  applied  to  everji;hing  in  the 
doomed  area,  which  is  Germany's  rule  in  war. 
It  spares  neither  the  past  nor  the  present; 
and,  so  far  as  in  it  lies,  there  shall  be  no  future 
possible  where  it  has  been  compelled  to  loosen 
its  grip.  Such  is  Kultur  in  action,  an  armed 
and  aggressive  doctrine.  The  German  "War- 
Book"  is  the  only  Bible  it  recognises. 

A  "doctrine  of  devils ;"  to  which  the  strongest 
human  motives  have  added  poisonous  flames. 
For  Belgium,  by  three  weeks  of  resistance, 
had  thrown  the  Prussian  plan  out  of  gear, 


THE  TRIUMPH  OF  "KULTUR"    287 

allowed  time  for  a  British  expedition  to  land 
on  the  coast  of  France,  and  shown  that  the 
Germans,  though  each  might  be  "fierce  as  ten 
Furies,  terrible  as  Hell,"  were  not  invincible. 
Belgium  was  conquered  up  to  the  sands  of 
Dunkirk;  its  hero-king  had  but  a  margin  by 
the  sea  to  call  his  own.  But  in  the  fourth 
week  of  August  French  and  British  troops, 
though  hard  beset,  and  the  French  badly  beaten 
at  Charleroi,  were  fighting  the  immortal  rear- 
ward action  to  be  known  in  history  as  the 
glorious  Retreat  from  Mons.  The  War,  said 
experts  in  strategy,  long  ere  its  thunder  broke 
into  fire-floods,  cannot  be  a  long  one;  Europe 
has  no  reserves  of  force  equal  to  those  lengthy, 
dawdling  campaigns  of  old  time.  It  will  be 
decided  in  the  West;  and  about  a  month  will 
see  the  battles  over  which  must  detennine  the 
issue.  At  Berlin  the  General  Staff  held  pretty 
much  an  identical  view ;  and  the  Seven  Weeks 
of  1866  were  freely  cited. 

'Now  let  us  reckon  how  many  days  elapsed 
between  July  23,  when  Count  Berchtold  sent 
that  arrogant,  false  ultimatum  to  Belgrade, 
and  September  10,  when  the  Battles  of  the 
Marne  were  ending.  The  number  is  forty- 
nine,  just  seven  weeks.  Nothing,  it  seemed 
at  fii-st,  could  stop  the  ''march  of  the  Huns." 


288       THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 


On  their  way  the  north-eastern  fortresses  of 
France  fell  as  at  the  sound  of  a  rushing,  mighty 
wind.  Our  little  army,  under  General  French, 
fought  heroically  day  and  night  from  August 
23;  but  still,  at  the  word  of  General  Joffre, 
it  kept  on  retreating.  The  modern  Huns 
swept  forward  in  the  track  of  Attila  (June 
451),  whom  the  Kaiser  had  taken  as  his  model, 
and  of  whom  we  read  that  he  "sacked  most 
of  the  cities  in  Belgic  Gaul."  Over  the  "Cata- 
launian  fields,"  or  plains  of  Champagne,  they 
drove  ahead,  until  they  reached  Meaux,  within 
twenty  miles  of  Paris,  and  the  booming  of 
their  great  guns  could  be  heard  in  the  suburbs 
at  Vincennes.  On  September  3  the  Govern- 
ment transferred  itself  to  Bordeaux.  Nearly 
one  million  people,  it  is  said,  left  the  Capital, 
and  we  were  resigning  our  minds  to  its  fall. 
In  imagination  we  saw  the  Prussian  Uhlans 
riding  along  once  more  past  the  Arc  de 
Triomphe  and  the  Champs  Elysees  into  the 
Place  de  la  Concorde.  On  that  same  day  in 
Rome  a  new  pope  was  elected,  who  took  the 
name  of  Benedict  XV,  and  to  whose  coming 
reign  legend  attached  the  prophetic  words, 
"Religio  depopulata,"  or  "Religion  laid  waste." 
They  were  to  have  striking  fulfihnent;  but  the 
Huns  would  not  enter  Paris. 


THE  TRIUMPH  OF  "KULTUR" 


289 


For  now  General  von  Kluek  made  his  turn- 
ing move  south-east  before  the  French  lines. 
General  Joffre  called  up   his    Sixth   Army; 
General  French,  not  annihilated,  smote  rudely 
on  the  Germans  at  hand;  the  second  decisive 
Battle  of  the  "Catalaunian  fields"  began  on 
Sunday,   September  6,  and  spread  over  one 
hundred    miles.       That  ancient    first    battle 
against  Attila  (June  25,  451),  says  the  histor- 
ian Jornandes,  was  "fierce,  various,  obstinate, 
and  bloody,  without  parallel  in  past  ages;  he 
that  saw  not  this  wonder  had  seen  nothing.'* 
But  the  second  eclipsed  all  hitherto  fought,  not 
so  much  in  magnitude  as  in  consequences.    It 
lasted  with  vicissitudes  during  four  clear  days, 
of  which    September   8— the   Feast   of   Our 
Lady's   Nativity— beheld   the   German   right 
defeated  and  falling  back  under  pressure  of 
the  English  and  French  combined.  Next  day, 
the  9th,  brought  high  winds,  drenching  rains, 
and  the  critical  moment  of  the  whole  war.    It 
ended  in  our  favour.  On  Thursday,  September 
10,   1914,  "the  battle  of  the  Marne  had  to 
all  intents  been  won  by  the  Allies,  and  the 
engagement  became  a  drive." 

By  Saturday  the  12th  the  Germans  were 
taking  shelter  in  the  entrenched  positions  on 
the  Aisne  which  they  had  previously  got  ready. 


290       THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 

Their  forward  movement  came  to  an  end. 
The  new  line  was  one  of  the  strongest  defences 
in  Europe.  But  the  Great  Offensive  had  been 
met  and  broken.  The  thing  which  German 
strategists,  bred  on  ]Moltke's  principles,  dreaded 
more  than  all,  was  now  to  be  their  portion — 
the  parallel  battle  in  the  trenches  from  the 
borders  of  Switzerland  to  the  Xorth  Sea. 
The  Polish  Jew  of  Warsaw,  J.  S.  Bloch,  had 
so  far  back  as  1898  described  such  a  "line 
of  battle  in  the  earth";  he  predicted  quite 
accurately  that  the  "breaking  of  frontier 
defences,"  an  operation  hitherto  unknown, 
would  be  required  in  the  war  of  the  future; 
and  that  to  do  it  "without  a  whole  series  of 
battles  is  inconceivable."  He  concluded  that 
there  would  be  no  conclusion,  but  a  stalemate. 
This,  after  nearly  three  years  of  fighting  on 
the  French,  Italian,  Turkish,  and  Russian 
fronts,  remains  to  be  seen.  But  when  the 
Allies  and  the  Germans  had  raced  on  till  both 
armies  w^ere  halted  on  the  edge  of  the  North 
Sea,  neither  outflanking  the  other,  it  became 
clear  that,  by  losing  the  battle  of  the  Marne, 
his  Majesty  Kaiser  Wilhelm  had  lost  all 
chance  of  winning  the  War.  Time,  I  say, 
which  had  been  the  German  asset,  passed  over 
thereupon  to  the  Allies;  they  could  marshal 


THE  TRIUMPH  OF  "KULTUR"    '^gi 


and  employ  their  inexhaustible  resources,  while 
the  Central  Empires  underwent  a  gradually 
tightening  blockade  by  land  as  well  as  by  sea. 
From  henceforth  autocracy  stood  at  bay;  the 
King's  Evil  was  fighting  as  a  forlorn  hope  in 
its  last  defences.  Few,  perhaps,  realised  that 
the  experts  were  justified,  and  that  the  out- 
come of  the  War,  however  long  it  might  be, 
was  already  certain. 

I  borrow  from  Goethe  the  phrase  and  fact 
of  "elective  afiinities."  They  exist  between 
nations  no  less  than  individuals;  and  now 
they  were  making  their  influence  more  and 

more  felt.    Free  men  drew  close  to  free  men 

slave-States   to   slave-States.      Of   the   great 
free  alliance,  it  was  naturally  the  Common- 
wealths of  the  British  Empire  that  set  the 
example.    They  rallied  to  the  Mother  Country 
—Canadians,   Australians,   New   Zealanders; 
South  Africa  was  grateful  and  passionately 
loyal ;  India  broke  into  a  fever  of  enthusiasm  for 
the  British  Raj,  whose  Emperor  and  Empress 
it  had  beheld  on  lofty  thrones  at  Delhi.   The 
British  Islands  were  united  as  never  before. 
On  August  3,  when  the  die  was  cast,   Mr. 
John  Redmond,  rising  in  Parliament  as  his 
country's  leader,  held  out  the  right  hand  of 
friendship  to  England.  It  was  heartily  taken, 


292       THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 

i  '  ■        ' 

But  a  timid  Cabinet,  which  had  little  if  any 
sense  of  what  the  Irish  people  could  do 
beyond  the  walls  of  that  House,  throughout 
the  Empire  and  in  the  United  States,  left 
Home  Rule  a  dead  letter  on  the  Statute- 
Book.  In  due  time  the  ministers  would  reap 
their  reward  in  blood  and  fire — the  rising  of 
Eastertide  1916,  the  conflagration  of  Dublin's 
finest  street,  and  the  fierce  hatred  of  "Sinn 
Fein,"  bringing  down  with  a  crash  all  that 
Nationalists  and  Liberals  had  patiently  built 
up. 

In  September  1914  the  fair  dream  of 
reconciliation  smiled  on  us  all.  And  Irish 
soldiers,  Irish  regiments  outdid  and  distanced 
the  traditional  fame  of  their  reckless  daring. 
General  French  was  an  Irishman;  the  splen- 
dours of  the  Irish  Guards  during  the  retreat 
from  Mons  and  in  the  battles  of  the  Marne 
took  all  eyes.  By  and  by  the  Irish  at  Gallipoli, 
with  their  Australian  kinsfolk,  became  a  world's 
wonder  for  boldness  and  endurance.  What 
was  it  that  cast  an  evil  spell  over  these  most 
rare  achievements  and  the  country  to  which 
they  were  due?  It  was  the  survival  termed 
"Ascendancy,"  which  is  nothing  else  than  a 
kind  of  Junkerdom,  flourishing  in  Ireland  still 
because  Dublin  Castle  remains  its  last  trench. 


THE  TRIUMPH  OF    'KULTUR"     293 

I  cannot  pursue  the  subject.  A  mightier  voice 
than  that  of  any  private  writer  or  speaker 
would  give  it  resonance  before  the  War  was 
done.  We  shall  hear  that  voice  in  the  next 
chapter. 

Among  the  nations  abroad,  Italy  was  un- 
clasping, link  by  link,  the  fetters  of  the  Triplice, 
and  would  join  her  true  Allies  at  an  anxious 
moment  in  1915.  She  had  reft  Tripoli  from 
Turkey  by  force  of  arms;  her  enemy  at  all 
times  was  Austria.  The  Cabinet  of  Rumania 
would  be  guided  by  Italy.  Our  ancient  friend- 
ship with  Portugal  secured  that  Republic.  We 
could  not  expect  Holland  or  the  Scandinavian 
Powers  to  join  us.  The  Greeks  loved  freedom, 
but  their  royal  house,  bound  by  ties  of  blood 
to  the  Kaiser,  would  never  give  M.  Venizelos 
a  chance  to  lead  the  nation.  And  the  mind 
of  Bulgaria,  which  Ferdinand  of  Orleans  ruled, 
we  know  well  from  disclosures,  official  and 
private,  was  in  favour  of  alliance  with  Vienna. 
When  Turkey,  after  exhausting  the  patience 
of  our  ambassador,  sold  herself  to  the  Kaiser, 
not  for  any  exorbitant  price,  Bulgaria's  position 
was  like  that  of  a  director  on  a  financial  board 
who  has  the  casting-vote  in  his  pocket.  She 
stood  between  East  and  West — neutral,  but 
calling  out,  "What  offers?"  She  could  supply 


294       THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 

the  missing  section  of  the  Orient  line  from 
Berlin  to  Constantinople  and  on  to  Baghdad. 
To  complete  the  chain,  or  to  leave  it  hanging 
loose  in  two  parts,  lay  within  her  choice.  For 
months  her  parrot-cry  to  the  West  was, 
"Macedonia,  give  me  INIacedonia."  The  West, 
so  we  believed,  would  have  made  a  present 
to  Sofia,  as  the  Serbians  cried  out  bitterly, 
of  what  did  not  belong  to  them,  if  King 
Ferdinand  would  but  come  in.  Nevertheless, 
no  bargain  was  struck  by  Sir  Edward  Grey. 
He  was  not  the  Idnd  of  man  to  deal  with 
"King  Fox."  To  those  who  have  looked 
sharply  into  the  "aspirations  of  Bulgaria" 
there  can  seem  little  question  that,  once  Mace- 
donia had  been  surrendered,  the  ci-devant 
Austrian  officer  would  have  kept,  not  his  word 
but  his  prize,  and  held  out  a  trusty  hand  to 
Vienna  on  one  side,  to  Stamboul  on  the  other. 
When  chaffering  was  in  vain,  he  declared 
against  the  Allies. 

Belgium  offers  a  fine  contrast  to  Bulgaria. 
Chosen  by  the  Power  which  was  guiding  men 
through  stoiTn  and  suffering  on  the  upward 
wajT-,  Belgium,  as  the  moral  centre  of  the 
World's  Debate,  shone  with  increasing  lustre. 
She  had  the  rare  felicity  of  possessing  a  king 
who  was  of  heroic  mould,  and  a  cardinal  who 


THE  TRIUMPH  OF  "KULTUR"    295 


was  at  once  a  patriot,  a  scholar,  and  a  saint. 
These  are  lofty  terms;  but  none  less  exalted 
will  describe  a  tragic  situation  where   these 
illustrious  actors  lived  so  grandly  up  to  the 
parts   assigned  them.     I  have  now,  for  the 
purpose  of  this  argument,  to  quote  the  very 
words  of  King  Albert's  immortal  reply  to  the 
aggressor:     "The  attack  on  her  independence 
with  which  the  German  Government  threatens 
Belgium,  would  constitute  a  flagrant  violation 
of  the  Law  of  Nations.   No  strategic  interest 
can  justify  the  violation  of  Right.     If  the 
Belgian  Government  accepted  the  proposals 
which  have  been  notified  to  it,  it  would  sac- 
rifice the  nation's  honour  and  betray  its  duties 
towards  Europe."     Such  was  the  Royal  defi- 
ance to  iniquity. 

Amid  growing  horror,  civilised  peoples  had 
been  taught,  as  I  described  it  in  the  Dublin 
Review  of  January  1915,  the  "Lesson  of 
Louvain."  It  showed  them  German  Kultur 
doing  its  work  of  perfect  mechanism,  with  a 
heart  as  hard  as  the  rock  from  which  it  was 
hewn.  Another  lesson,  and  of  a  nobler  cast, 
awaited  the  invaders  themselves.  Motley,  the 
American  historian,  writing  on  The  Bise  of 
the  Dutch  Iteimhlic,  has  these  words :  "Peaceful 
m  their  pursuits,  phlegmatic  by  temperament, 


296       THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 

i 

the  Netherlanders  were  yet  the  most  beUiger- 
ent  and  excitable  population  of  Europe."  On 
both  sides  of  the  Scheldt  that  witness  remains 
true.  The  Belgians  would  not  give  in.  Though 
Liege,  Namur,  Brussels,  and  Antwerp  had 
fallen;  though  Ghent,  and  Bruges,  and  Os- 
tend  were  in  the  enemy  possession;  though 
in  combats  without  ceasing,  against  formidable 
odds,  the  Belgian  Army  had  poured  out  its 
blood  on  the  stricken  field  until  more  than 
half  of  its  men  were  killed,  wounded,  or  taken, 
the  remnant  fought  down  to  the  shores  of 
the  sea  undaunted.  King  Albert  raised  and 
equipped  a  second  host  which,  by  the  side  of 
our  soldiers,  won  glory  in  the  victories  of  the 
Yser,  Ypres,  and  Calais.  The  King's  "un- 
conquerable soul,"  as  he  led  his  troops  to  the 
long  campaigns  where  a  foe'  was  driving  at 
them  in  rage  and  hate,  but  always  found  them 
steady  as  of  old,  inspired  poets  and  draughts- 
men, stirred  the  admiration  of  distant  Amer- 
ica, made  of  the  Belgian  flag  the  banner  of 
freedom.    Here  was  a  King  indeed. 

With  him  stood  forward  the  Cardinal,  a 
figure  not  less  heroic.  When  Gibbon  is  telling 
how  Attila,  ravaging  Gaul  in  451,  laid  siege 
to  Orleans,  he  dwells  on  "the  pastoral  dili- 


THE  TRIUMPH  OF  "KULTUR"    297 


gence  of  Anianus,  a  bishop  of  primitive  sanctity 
and  consummate  prudence,"  who  "exhausted 
every  art  of  religious  policy  to  support  their 
courage  till  the  arrival  of  the  expected  suc- 
cours." In  Cardinal  Mercier  we  shall  not  seek 
any  politic  art  except  a  manly  firmness;  but, 
allowing  for  the  Gibbonian  style,  these  words, 
while  describing  the  ancient  prelate  who  saved 
Orleans,  may  be  well  adapted  to  this  un- 
doubtedly great  man  in  the  like  circumstances. 
He  could  not,  it  is  true,  protect  Malines,  his 
primatial  See,  or  its  imposing  Cathedral,  from 
the  modern  hordes.  They  burnt  and  slew  all 
round,  as  they  would.  But  Cardinal  Mercier 
stayed  among  his  people,  and  was  not  to  be 
removed.  He  became  the  voice  of  Belgium. 
He  spoke  as  the  Catholic  Faith  guided  him 
to  speak.  And  he  smote  Kultur  with  his 
pastoral  staff  in  the  sight  of  the  world. 

We  who  had  seen  and  heard  him  at  Canter- 
bury, in  1897,  when  we  were  celebrating  the 
seventh  centenary  of  St.  Augustine's  landing  at 
Ebbsfleet,  knew  what  manner  of  man  he  was. 
The  Cardinal  did,  indeed,  journey  to  Rome  in 
the  last  days  of  the  sorrowful  month  of  August 
1914,  just  after  Louvain  had  passed  through 
the  fire.     The  late  Pope,  Pius  X,  was  dead. 


298       THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 

He  expired  on  August  20,  the  day  when  the 
Germans  entered  Brussels;  and  grief  at  the 
coming  on  of  war  which  Austria  would  not 
delay  at  his  bidding  hastened  the  saintly  old 
man's  death.  When  Benedict  XV  was  elected 
the  Cardinal  went  back  to  his  flock  and  his 
prison.  With  New  Year  the  storm  burst  on 
him.  In  answer  to  questions  from  his  clergy 
the  Primate  of  Belgium  sent  out  a  charge  so 
clear  and  telling  that  the  German  authorities 
"tore  up  the  Pastoral,  fined  the  printer,  and 
put  the  highest  ecclesiastic  in  the  land  under 
a  guard."  The  Kaiser  would  have  deported 
him  to  Germany,  as  he  did  M.  Max,  the  burgo- 
master of  Brussels,  had  not  men  of  all  creeds 
and  parties  uttered  their  protest.  Rome  was 
deeply  indignant ;  the  Holy  Father  made  ready 
to  act.  Then  the  German  Emperor  denied  all 
his  satellites  had  done.  It  was  a  Christian 
principle  to  avoid  bloodshed ;  "whatever  might 
lead  even  indirectly  to  agitations  and  risings," 
he  observed  to  the  Vatican,  "would  neces- 
sitate severe  measures  on  the  part  of  the 
(German)  army."  This  warning,  if  we  trans- 
late it  into  plain  language,  threatened  rapine 
and  slaughter  unless  the  Cardinal  kept  silence. 
JBut  he  has   never   kept   silence   when   duty 


THE  TRIUMPH  OF  "KULTUR"     299 

called;  and  his  Pastorals  have  given  Belgium 
new  courage,  while  they  are  circulated  on 
both  sides  of  the  Atlantic,  and  admired 
wherever  they  are  read. 

I  gave  my  view  of  the  episode  on  February 
12,  1915,  and  will  ask  leave  to  quote  its 
conclusion  here.  {Catholic  Times,  "The  Un- 
just Aggressor  in  Belgium.") 

"Yes,"  I  wrote,  "Cardinal  Mercier  has 
committed  an  unpardonable  crime.  He  said 
to  the  invader:  'You  have  robbed,  plundered, 
murdered,  committed  sacrilege;  but  all  these 
things,  for  which  I  give  you  chapter  and 
verse,  do  not  make  you  liege  lord  of  Belgium.' 
To  the  people  he  said:  'Be  still;  your  King 
commands  it.  Leave  the  fighting  to  our 
army  and  our  allies.  But  remember  that 
you  are  not  subjects  of  any  sovereign,  or 
bound  by  any  Constitution,  except  your  own. 
To  the  enemy  you  owe  nothing.  Look 
forward.  Belgium  will  be  free  once  more.' 
These  noble  words  have  won  the  battle  of 
right  by  their  mere  enunciation.  They  re- 
duced the  German  forces,  military,  judicial, 
imperial,  to  the  moral  impotence  of  an  earth- 
quake or  a  breaking  of  the  dykes.  Teutons 
might  storm,  lay  waste,  set  the  world  ablaze; 


300       THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 

what  had  all  that  violence  to  do  with  the 
rights  of  the  nation  settled  in  its  own  land? 
A  soldier  suppresses  the  Pastoral,  interns  the 
Primate.  Has  he  any  right  to  do  either? 
Right,  none  at  all;  a  strong  hand,  with 
howitzers  and  other  weapons  of  death,  we 
see  that  he  has.  The  Cardinal,  an  incarnate 
figure  of  Justice,  stands  over  against  him, 
erect,  unharmed.  Sheer  force  on  one  side, 
absolute  Right  on  the  other.  That  is  Bel- 
giimi's  reply  to  'Deutschland  iiber  AUes.* 
With  it  begins  a  better  time  for  Europe  and 
the  world.  Kneel  down,  Germans,  and  salute 
in  this  unconquerable  though  stricken  people 
the  Cross  of  Christ." 

I  headed  this  chapter,  *'The  Triumph  of 
Kultur."  Ought  I  to  have  written  rather  its 
"Defeat"?  Cardinal  Mercier,  the  man  of 
conscience,  has  therein  sentenced  his  Majesty 
the  Kaiser,  the  man  of  blood  .  .  . 

Yesterday,  May  the  Seventh,  was  Lusitania 
Day.  We  commemorated  the  sinking  by 
German  craft  of  that  unarmed  Atlantic  liner, 
when  nearly  twelve  hundred  men,  women, 
and  children  perished  off  the  coast  of  Ireland, 
among  them  one  hundred  Americans,  and 
Father  Basil  Maturin,  beloved  of  many  of  us. 


THE  TRIUMPH  OF  "KULTUR"     301 

I  am  about  to  narrate  how  the  United  States 
came  to  join  the  Allies.  You  will  grant,  dear 
reader,  that  the  sinking  of  the  Lusitania 
forms  a  perfect  transition,  not  excelled  by  any 
in  the  literature  of  mankind. 


CHAPTER  XIV 


America  passes  Judgment 


THE  end  of  my  book  now  returns  to 
the  beginning,  as  a  good  composition 
ought;  and  I  shall  hope  to  round  my  ring. 
I  began  with  England,  the  Treaty  of  West- 
phalia, the  Hundred  Days  from  October  1648 
to  January  30,  1649.  But  I  held  America 
in  reserve  and  have  never  lost  sight  of  it.  For 
on  that  side  of  the  ocean  as  well  as  on  this 
the  year  1649  marks  a  great  commencement. 
Then  it  was  that  Lord  Baltimore,  the  ''pro- 
prietor" of  Maryland,  drew  up  and  promul- 
gated the  Act  of  Toleration,  which  allowed 
Catholics  and  Protestants  to  live  in  peace 
under  the  same  laws.  This  Catholic  peer,  says 
Bancroft,  the  standard  historian,  "was  the 
first  to  make  religious  freedom  the  basis  of 
the  State."  A  more  suggestive  expression,  in 
view  of  what  kings  and  secular  Governments 
have  continually  attempted,  with  troubles  be- 
yond calculation,  is  "the  State's  incompetence 
in  religious  matters."  Jesuit  philosophers  of 
eminence — and    few    names    rank   higher   in 

302 


AMERICA  PASSES  JUDGMENT    303 

the  last  three  hundred  years  than  the  Jesuit 
Suarez,  who  wrote  against  King  James  I — 
had  anticipated  the  limits  set  by  Whigs  to 
State  authority.  Suarez,  indeed,  has  been 
called  by  some  good  Jacobite  in  his  haste, 
"the  first  Whig";  but  Dr.  Johnson  went 
farther  back  to  find  him,  as  we  have  all  heard. 
In  any  case,  even  Spanish  theologians  denied 
the  absolute  power  of  the  crown,  long  before 
Cromwell  and  his  Ironsides,  at  Naseby  in 
1645,  broke  the  C^sarism  which  had  got  a 
footing  in  this  Island  with  Tudors  and  Stuarts. 
We  must  therefore  enlarge  our  vision  of  the 
Westphalian  period,  1648-1649,  and  include 
America  when  we  would  speak  of  the  new- 
birth  of  freedom. 

Not,  at  the  outset,  Puritan  America.  Lord 
Acton,  alluding  to  Maryland,  points  the  dif- 
ference. "The  Catholic  emigrants,"  he  says, 
"established  for  the  first  time  in  modern 
history  a  government  in  which  religion  was 
free,  and  with  it  the  germ  of  that  religious 
liberty  which  now  prevails  in  America.  The 
Puritans,  on  the  other  hand,  revived  with 
greater  severity  the  penal  laws  of  the  mother- 
country."  Not  Massachusetts  but  Rhode 
Island  claims  the  honour  of  inaugurating  a 
political  peace   among  the   Reformed,   from 


304       THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 

which  in  due  time  the  American  Constitution 
would  derive  its  famous  First  Amendment  of 
1791 :  "Congress  shall  make  no  law  respecting 
an  establishment  of  religion,  or  prohibiting  the 
free  exercise  thereof,  or  abridging  the  freedom 
of  speech  or  of  the  press."  At  length  we  have 
reached  a  direct  contradiction,  set  forth  by 
the  lawful  authority  of  a  sovereign  state,  to 
the  Jus  Reformandi  granted  to  rulers  at  the 
Congress  of  Westphalia,  by  which  they  could 
compel  their  subjects  to  believe  as  the  Prince 
ordered  them.  This  ^monstrous  regiment" 
of  laymen  had  been  at  once  condemned  by 
Pope  Innocent  X.  Now  the  American  Con- 
stitution made  it  for  ever  impossible  in  the 
United  States,  which  were  destined  to  contain 
the  largest  number  of  Europeans  by  descent 
living  under  a  single  government,  and  that 
the  government  of  their  choice. 

How  these  far-off  events  bore  on  the  con- 
vulsions now,  in  the  year  1917,  tending  with 
violence  towards  a  solution,  will  appear  from 
the  narrative  I  take  up  at  this  point  in  my 
own  way.    It  is  still  one  of  reminiscence. 

In  the  spring  of  the  year  1901  I  was  travel- 
ling with  a  fellow-priest  in  Sicily  and  Greece. 
We  arrived  in  Athens  on  the  Greek  "Lady 
Day";    and,    seated    before    our    hotel,    the 


AMERICA  PASSES  JUDGMENT    305 

Minerva,  in  Stadion  Street,  we  enjoyed  the 
spectacle,  which  Socrates  had  witnessed  down 
at  the  Piraeus,  or  something  not  unlike  it,  called 
the  "Lampadephoria,"  the  torch-race,  from  the 
Kerameikos  to  the  Acropolis.  What  we  saw 
was  a  procession  of  the  Athenian  people  bearing 
lights,  the  Army  and  Navy  represented  by  se- 
lect companies,  marching  up  to  the  Parthenon, 
and  singing  as  they  moved  in  praise  of  Hel- 
las, "Hail,  dear  land  of  liberty!"  The  Amer- 
ican, too,  sings  that  refrain.  But  these  men 
of  Athens  were  celebrating,  as  they  did  every 
year  on  that  Feast  of  the  Panagia,  their 
deliverance  from  the  Turkish  yoke.  We  were 
glad  to  be  there  on  such  a  night.  And  when 
Easter  morning  came  I  spent  an  hour  in  the 
Parthenon,  while  the  sunlight  struck  througl^ 
its  marble  columns,  beautiful  as  lucent  in  their 
half -transparency.  And  the  wine-dark  sea  lay 
beneath.  There  is  no  language  equal  to  these 
moments ;  enough  to  have  lived  them. 

Still  do  the  words  which  Milton  translated 
from  his  favourite  among  Greek  poets,  Euri- 
pides, describe  Athens  and  Attica,  "pure  the 
air  and  light  the  soil";  and  we  pilgrims  felt 
our  thoughts  brighten, 

"  5ld  "Ka/JLTpOTCLTOV 

jSaivovTCS    d/3pws  aidekpos," 


306       THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 

short  as  our  stay  could  be.  How  shall  we 
forget  the  morning  when  we  found  ourselves 
at  Marathon,  in  that  garden  enclosed  between 
the  hills  and  the  Aegean,  as  a  carpet  unfolded, 
rich  with  purple  and  tawny  gold  of  the  spring- 
tide flowers?  It  was  like  a  sculptured  bas- 
relief,  tinted  by  the  hand  of  Pheidias,  clear  yet 
opulent  in  a  light  undimmed,  unflecked  by  any 
cloud.  Our  kind  friend,  the  American  Consul 
in  Athens,  accompanied  us,  and  a  young 
American  priest  who  was  then  studying  at 
the  university.  And  we  sat  down  near  the 
"Soros,"  or  mound,  under  which  were  buried 
the  two  hundred  men  of  Attica  who  fell  when 
the  Persian  host  was  beaten,  to  the  saving  of 
the  world's  freedom.  Yes,  on  that  day,  nearly 
four-and-twenty  centuries  ago, 

"  'Let  there  be  light,*  said  Liberty, 
And,  like  sunrise  from  the  sea, 
Athens  arose." 

Our  little  band  that  morning  were  all  con- 
vinced, ardent  lovers  of  the  ideals  which,  in 
his  noblest  of  Funeral  Orations,  the  Athenian 
Pericles  held  up  to  admiration,  kindling  a 
hope  never  to  be  quenched.  The  brave  old 
Consul  was  a  soldier  who  had  in  the  War  of 
Liberation  been  day  after  day  "marching 
through  Georgia"  with  Sherman,  to  Savannah 


AMERICA  PASSES  JUDGMENT    307 

and  the  Atlantic.  His  fellow-countryman 
from  the  West  could  not  imagine  what  an 
absolute  Monarchy  resembled;  he  had  never 
seen  one.  My  travelling  companion  was  a 
Lancashire  man,  a  scholar  and  a  Radical 
servant  of  the  people,  whose  lost  children  he 
gathered  in  his  arms  like  the  Good  Shepherd, 
his  Master.  And  I — but  which  is  there  of 
her  sons,  or  her  sons'  sons,  exiled  from  "sad 
lerne,"  that  could  be  other  than  a  standard- 
bearer  of  liberty?  We  are  known,  in  every 
Parliament  and  Congress  whither  we  send  our 
brothers  to  speak,  as  voting  always  on  the  side 
of  popular  rights.  And  be  it  remembered  here 
that  since  Catholic  Emancipation  became  the 
source  of  power — I  mean,  since  the  year  1832 
— perhaps  not  a  single  Liberal  measure  would 
have  been  carried  triumphantly  through  the 
House  of  Commons  except  for  the  Irish 
Catholic  vote.  "Sad  lerne"  has  known  too 
much  and  known  too  long  what  it  is  to  lie  at 
the  mercy  of  a  class  and  a  caste. 

And  so,  musing  at  IMarathon,  we  could  have 
said  with  Shelley,  omitting  one  word,  of  which 
in  an  instant,  "We  are  all  Greeks.  Our  laws, 
our  literature,  our  religion,  our  arts,  have  their 
roots  in  Greece."  Nay,  dear  Shelley,  the 
Acropolis  stands  not  hard  by  Sion's  hill ;  there 


308       THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 

is  another,  a  loftier  inspiration  than  "Know 
Thyself,"  writ  above  the  oracle  of  Delphi, 
which  created  the  true  Humanities,  I  will 
grant  you,  but  could  do  no  more.  The  rest 
of  that  sentence  we  made  our  own.  We 
talked  of  the  swift  wings  of  Freedom,  which 
carried  her  from  this  hallowed  mound  over 
lands  and  oceans,  to  the  "Island-throne,  far 
in  the  West,"  to  "far  Atlantis,"  whence 
"against  the  course  of  heaven  and  doom" 
she  came  flying  to  rescue  France  from  out- 
worn despotisms  and  to  shake  all  Europe,  as 
the  tempest  shakes  the  sea.  It  is  a  circum- 
stance to  be  noted.  Our  thoughts,  too,  ran 
upon  the  naval  victory  of  Salamis,  in  whose 
waters  we  should  be  sailing  ere  long.  As  by 
and  by  we  took  our  place  in  the  Theatre  of 
Athens,  fancy  might  behold  on  that  high  stage 
the  battle-piece  devised  by  Aeschylus,  wherein 
Persians  and  Athenians  were  described  so 
vividly  grappling  with  each  other  for  the 
world's  dominion  that  no  modern  scene  could 
give  it  a  stronger  semblance.  The  memories 
of  Byron  had  met  us  on  our  way  past  Misso- 
longhi;  we  deciphered  his  name  on  one  of  the 
marble  columns  left  of  Athena's  temple  on 
Sunium  height.  Even  to  hateful  Sparta  we 
could   allow   one  moment,   that  of   Thermo- 


AMERICA  PASSES  JUDGMENT     309 

pylse,  and  call  to  it,  "Stay,  thou  art  so 
beautiful!"  Our  voyage  through  Ionian  gulfs 
had  brought  us,  and  would  take  us  again,  in 
the  neighbourhood  of  the  Battle  of  Lepanto, 
when  "apud  Insulas  Echinadas"  the  might  of 
Christendom,  blest  and  despatched  against  the 
Turk  by  St.  Pius  V,  had  shattered  once  for  all 
the  Moslem  sea-power.  These  were  the  mus- 
ings of  which  Marathon  could  give  account  on 
that  fair  morning,  in  the  sculptural  landscape, 
where  Albion,  lerne,  Atlantis,  greeted  the  sun 
as  he  rode  up  the  sky  of  Hellas.  Our  hearts 
thrilled  to  some  echo  from  Shelley's  prayer 
on  the  lips  of  dying,  but  yet  unconquerable, 
Greeks — 

"O  ye,  who  float  around  this  clime,  and  weave 
The  garment  of  the  glory  which  it  wears; 
Whose  fame,  though  earth  betray  the  dust  it  clasped, 
Lies  sepulchred  in  monumental  thought! 
Progenitors  of  all  that  yet  is  great! 
Ascribe  to  your  bright  senate,  oh  accept 
In  your  high  ministrations  us  your  sons — 
Us  first,  and  the  more  glorious  yet  to  come." 

To  come  they  were  indeed,  on  the  challenge  of 
those  latter-day  Persians  and  their  ambiguous 
Kaiser,  who  was  Protestant  in  Berlin,  a  Catholic 
Charlemagne  at  the  Vatican,  protector  of  Mos- 
lems by  his  own  creation  at  the  Sublime  Porte. 
And  what  share  would  Atlantis- America  take 


310       THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 

in  Armageddon?  For  my  part,  I  knew  from 
the  beginning  and  never  doubted.  To  my 
friend  in  Athens,  the  Consul  who  marched 
with  Sherman,  I  had  spoken  of  the  feeling 
with  which  I  once  looked  down  on  the  green 
slopes  of  the  cemetery  at  Arlington,  Virginia, 
where  sixteen  thousand  of  his  fellow-com- 
batants in  the  Civil  War  had  found  their  last 
resting-place.  The  American  Union  realized 
a  grander  conception  of  Freedom  than  Greeks 
would  have  deemed  possible,  when  its  own 
citizens  died  in  their  prime  that  the  coloured 
people  should  not  be  slaves  any  more.  But  in 
our  Day  of  Doom 

"The  earth  rebels.     And  Good  and  Evil  stake 
Their  empire  o'er  the  unborn  world  of  men 
On  this  one  cast." 

In  January  1915  I  wrote:  "No  greater  good 
in  the  political  order  has  been  achieved  at  any 
time  than  English  freedom.  I  call  it  English, 
because  the  other  peoples  living  in  these  islands 
did  no':  create  or  defend  its  beginnings,  and 
from  England  alone  it  was  carried  across  the 
Atlantic.  It  is  largely  negative" — I  pray  you 
that  detest  the  ways  of  Prussianism  to  attend 
— "setting  bounds  to  State-power,  distrusting 
Government,  chafing  under  officials;  but  all 
these  things  it  does  from  a  positive  and  real 


AMERICA  PASSES  JUDGMENT    311 

principle,  which  briefly  we  may  term  Con- 
science. Our  freedom,  as  we  know  it,  is  an 
appeal  not  to  custom  or  to  force,  but  to  the 
inward  sense  of  right  and  wrong  planted  in 
every  man's  heart.  That  such  appeals  often 
issue  in  movements  fanatical,  grotesque,  and 
almost  insane,  I  shall  not  deny.  But  where 
criticism  is  forbidden  freedom  ceases;  and 
while  we  pay  the  price,  often  severe,  of  our 
rooted  unfaith  in  the  powers  that  be,  on^ 
advantage  shines  out,  with  a  brightness  as  of 
the  morning  star  amid  clouds,  on  a  world  un- 
like England.  Public  opinion,  established  by 
this  English-American  tribunal,  where  each 
and  all  speak  their  minds,  is  in  a  fair  way  to 
become  the  conscience  of  civilised  men.  .  .  . 
Their  judgment  anticipates  history.  Riches 
cannot  bribe,  threats  leave  it  undaunted. 
'This  is  my  throne,  bid  kings  come  bow  to 
it,'  cries  Constance  in  the  tragedy.  We  have 
seen  the  German  Lord  of  War  hiunbly  suing 
at  Washington  to  be  favourably  heard.  But 
at  home  in  England  too,  if  his  cause  were  just, 
he  would  not  lack  defenders.  .  .  .  The  old 
inbred  sense  of  fair-play  (which  is  a  word  of 
sport,  meaning  justice)  will  not  be  satisfied 
until  it  has  taken  all  the  evidence  into  account, 
for  and  against  the  Fatherland,  its  rulers,  gene- 


312       THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 

rals,  professors,  fighting-men.  And  no  British 
Government  can  browbeat  the  jury,  or  compel 
it  to  speak  otherwise  than  it  thinks." 

That  passage,  and  I  am  proud  to  be  its 
author,  stands  on  record.  If  I  may  keep  up 
the  analogy,  which  is  in  fact  something  more, 
the  foreman  of  the  jury  was  President  Wilson. 
We  speak  of  old  habit  in  law  of  judge  and 
jury,  with  good  ground;  but,  after  all  and  in 
the  long  run  of  public  events,  the  jury,  that 
is  to  say  the  nation,  is  also  the  judge.  And 
the  foreman  collects  the  votes,  to  which  he 
adds  his  own.  This  function  Dr.  Wilson 
fulfilled  to  the  letter.  He  listened  long  and 
attentively  to  the  democratic  millions.  From 
them  he  held  his  mandate.  Though  elected 
a  second  time,  he  was  no  absolute  ruler,  but 
just  a  man  out  of  the  crowd  to  do  the  nation's 
bidding.  I  do  not  call  the  nation  a  crowd, 
far  from  it.  There  is  a  vital  distinction  which 
Victor  Hugo  taught  with  his  customary  pomp 
of  words  and  in  strong  colours,  when  a  false 
France  elected  Napoleon  III  to  be  its  chief 
in  1869  after  he  had  been  its  executioner  in 
1851.  The  nation  is  a  juridical,  a  moral 
entity;  the  crowd  comes  of  chance,  the  nation 
of  law.  President  Wilson  was  waiting  until 
the  nation  of  America  had  made  up  its  con- 


AMERICA  PASSES  JUDGMENT     313 

1  — > 

science.     He  waited  from  August   1,   1914, 
down  to  April  2,  1917. 

And  the  world's  agony  went  on,  growing  in 
violence,  while  the  Day  of  Judgment  meted 
out  its  slow  hours.     I  remember  a  sad  case 
of  a  poor  fellow  dreadfully  hurt  in  one  of 
the  Birmingham  factories,  whom  a  friend  of 
mine  attended  as  a  priest  during  the  paroxysms 
of  pain,  and  how  the  sufferer  cried,  "O  my 
God,  I  am  ready  if  you  are  ready."  He  could 
not  bear  it,  he  looked  for  death  as  release. 
So  it  was  with  all  the  unhappy  nations  which 
the  war  took  and  tortured.     They  yearned 
after  Peace.    And  who  was  it  that  kept  the 
slaughter  going?    Baron  Burian,  the  Austrian 
Minister,  has  spoken,  like  the  Chancellor  of 
the  Kaiser,  a  winged  word.     "The  people," 
he  said;  "what  have  the  people  to  do  with  it? 
All  they  have  got  to  do  is  to  look  on."    They 
were  to  look  on  while  Baron  Burian  diploma- 
tised with  all  they  possessed.     But  when  it 
came  to  fighting,  they  would  have  to  work, 
and   suffer,   and   starve,   and   see   their   sons 
taken   for  the   war,    and   receive   them   back 
wounded,  or  maimed,  or  never  at  all.     Have 
these  no  right  to  choose  whether  kings  shall 
quarrel   unto   the   death— of   their   subjects? 
President  Wilson  was  more  than  a  king,  the 


314       THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 

people's  choice;  therefore  he  must  collect  their 
verdict  before  acting.  Meanwhile,  though  the 
battle  of  the  Marne  was  decisive  of  the  final 
issue,  Kultur  went  on  with  its  triumphs. 

I  am  not  proposing  to  describe  them. 
Neither  will  I  attempt  any  summing  up  of 
the  successes  and  failures  of  the  Allies.  These 
things  are  burnt  into  our  memories.  The 
Kaiser's  rage  was  that  of  a  Bearsark,  mad  and 
homicidal.  As  he  did  unto  Belgium,  so  was 
it  done  to  the  French  departments  held  by 
his  "frightful"  armies.  This  new  Constantine 
sacked,  burnt,  and  ruined  no  fewer  than  one 
thousand  three  hundred  and  sixty  Catholic 
churches  in  the  lands  he  was  passing  over. 
Russia — who  shall  venture  to  speak  a  word 
about  Russia  now?  The  true  Russia,  the 
German-held  Russia;  the  court  with  its  in- 
credible Rasputin,  its  irresponsible  Tsaritza, 
its  vacillating  Tsar;  the  visionary  peace- 
parties,  and  betrayed  armies;  and,  at  last,  the 
Revolution — here  is  "stuff  of  the  conscience" 
for  future  historians. 

I  mark  four  points  and  leave  them:  the 
invasion  of  East  Prussia,  followed  by  the 
smashing  defeat  of  Tannenberg,  August  26- 
81,  1914,  which  invasion  contributed  effectu- 
ally to  our  success  on  the  Marne  and  deserves 


AMERICA  PASSES  JUDGMENT     315 

eternal  gratitude;  the  Tsar's  proclamation  to 
Poland,  promising  complete  autonomy,  but 
rendered  of  none  effect  by  the  permanent 
camarilla  which  has  always  ruled  and  over- 
ruled the  sovereign;  the  utter  destruction  of 
Poland,  for  which  the  Russians  must  answer, 
being  perhaps  yet  more  guilty  than  the  Ger- 
man hosts,  and  in  any  case  cruel  on  a  vast 
front,  with  Siberia  to  eat  up  the  driven 
myriads  of  Poles  when  Warsaw  and  the 
country  were  evacuated;  the  sudden,  let  us 
hope  the  definite,  fall  of  the  Romanoffs; 
and  the  wonderful  but  anxious  disclosure  to 
Europe  of  a  democratic  Russia  in  March  1917. 
Will  the  old,  bureaucratic,  Germanised  Peters- 
burg, now  called  Petrograd,  be  converted  and 
live?  Or  will  it,  as  in  other  days  of  crisis, 
hold  on  until  it  has  got  the  upper  hand  of 
Moscow?  I  know  where  my  affections  incline 
me:  the  Russia  which  means  the  people  has 
boundless  though  inarticulate  genius,  in  re- 
ligion, in  humanity.  May  it  find  its  way  or 
make  it! 

Quitting  all  else  which  would  keep  me  from 
my  conclusion,  I  have  now  to  remark  that 
it  was  the  German  Schrechliclikeit^  or  system 
of  terror,  pursued  over  lands  and  seas,  which 
convinced  the  long-hesitating  American  jury 


316       THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 

to  give  in  the  verdict  of  "Guilty"  and  proceed 
to  sentence  and  execution.  Of  this  whole 
"State-trial  of  an  Empire,"  the  case  of  the 
Lusitania  will  afford  to  historians  the  model, 
the  argument,  and  the  governing  instance. 
The  Lusitania  was  destroyed,  deliberately  and 
wantonly,  on  May  7,  1915.  Two  years  after- 
wards, Germany,  as  was  evident,  had  been 
practising  for  many  months  of  set  purpose 
(and  all  along  as  occasion  allowed  under  false 
pretence),  the  destruction  of  unarmed  vessels, 
allied  or  neutral,  not  carrying  contraband, 
with  entire  disregard  of  treaties,  of  the  Hague 
Convention,  and  of  the  human  beings  in- 
volved. The  Central  Empires  had  given  up 
all  expectation  of  a  decision  in  their  favour 
on  land.  The  invention  of  the  submarine 
seemed  to  make  it  possible  at  sea,  by  starving 
out  England.  That  remarkable  change  in  the 
situation,  by  which  Britain  had  raised  an  army 
of  millions,  doing  splendid  and  probably  de- 
cisive work  in  France — though  very  heavy 
losses  were  incurred  at  Gallipoli — had  driven 
the  Germans  to  their  last  resource.  On  the 
submarine  campaign  they  staked  their  all.  If 
it  broke  every  law  of  international  peace 
among  neutrals,  and  of  the  conduct  of  bellig- 
erents towards  them,  that  could  not  be  helped. 


AMERICA  PASSES  JUDGMENT     317 

What  were  neutrals,  what  the  United  States, 
but  a  larger  Belgium?  Germany  must  "hack 
her  way  through." 

"There  are  no  laws  of  war,"  said  the 
German  War-Book,  "but  only  fear  of  re- 
prisals." From  this  it  follows  that  if  Britain 
had  stopped  every  means,  direct  and  indirect, 
by  which  food,  materials,  and  munitions  could 
enter  Germany,  the  Kaiser  would  have  had 
no  solid  ground  of  complaint.  And  where,  in 
1914,  was  the  neutral  Power  that  could  pro- 
tect its  sea-going  craft  from  British  attacks? 
Had  England  made  use  then,  as  Germany  did 
afterwards,  of  the  forces  at  her  disposal,  with- 
out regard  to  aught  except  her  own  immediate 
interests,  we  may  very  well  doubt  if  the  war 
would  have  lasted  a  year.  These  considera- 
tions ought  to  be  carefully  weighed.  England 
had  the  power,  but  she  did  not  judge  that 
she  had  the  right,  to  stop  all  neutral  traffic 
with  the  Central  Empires.  She  entered 
into  agreements,  especially  in  the  case  of  Hol- 
land, Denmark,  and  Scandinavia,  by  which, 
as  many  have  contended,  her  blockade  lost 
much  of  its  eiFect  and  the  enemy  was  able 
to  recover  from  the  defeats  inflicted  on  him 
economically  and  in  general  resources.  Yet 
Germany,  while  trampling  upon  right  without 


318       THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 


scruple,  demanded  the  utmost  regard  from 
the  AlHes  whom  she  was  poisoning  with 
deadly  gas;  from  the  Belgians,  thousands  of 
whom  she  was  deporting  as  slaves  to  far 
distant  places,  where  the  men  would  be  com- 
pelled to  work  and  starve,  the  women  to 
suffer  dishonour;  and  from  America,  in  the 
very  act  of  breaking  the  promises  she  had 
solemnly  made.  The  "Black  Book"  of  out- 
rages committed  by  her  troops  is  a  document 
which  brands  them  with  infamy.  But  of  equal 
immorality  and  lawlessness  we  are  bound  to 
accuse  Kaiser,  Chancellor,  and  Government, 
after  reading  the  long  record  of  chicane,  of 
falsehood,  and  of  smug  hypocrisy  which  stands 
side  by  side  with  her  catalogue  of  brutal 
crime. 

President  Wilson  held  on  his  course  de- 
liberately, expostulating  with  Berlin  as  out- 
rages came  to  shock  the  world,  speaking  of 
"strict  accountability"  for  them  and,  at  the 
same  time,  refusing  to  take  any  measures 
which  could  be  thought  a  provocation.  Even 
his  protests  when  the  Lusitania  was  torpedoed 
found  in  Mr.  W.  J.  Bryan,  the  Secretary  of 
State,  an  interpreter  so  pacific  that  Berlin 
took  no  heed  of  its  warnings.  At  length,  on 
the  declaration  of  a  submarine  campaign  in 


AMERICA  PASSES  JUDGMENT     319 

which  German  torpedoes  would  "sink  every 
vessel  at  sight"  which  dared  to  enter  an  im- 
aginary "danger-zone"  created  round  the  Brit- 
ish Isles  and  in  the  Mediterranean,  it  was 
felt  that  America  must  act  or  abdicate  her 
claim  to  be  a  great  Power.  The  notice  served 
upon  Washington  was  framed  in  terms  of 
high  contempt.  One  American  vessel  might 
ply  between  its  ports  and  Falmouth  once  a 
week,  provided  that  its  character  was  shown 
by  a  harlequin  habiliment  of  stripes  "alter- 
nately w^hite  and  red."  And  the  plea  of 
"humanity"  for  starving  Germany,  the  need 
to  finish  the  war  as  soon  as  possible,  reminded 
us  of  Herr  von  Jagow  and  his  word,  "Time 
is  our  asset." 

Before  taking  the  final  step,  President 
Wilson  had  issued  a  manifesto,  in  which  he 
pleaded  with  all  the  belligerents  to  name  their 
terms  of  peace.  The  central  Empires  wanted 
a  Conference — the  mere  holding  of  which 
would  have  weakened  the  Allies,  as  both  sides 
well  knew — but  the  Kaiser  would  state  no 
terms.  Most  happily  for  the  cause  of  justice, 
the  Allies  produced  their  answer,  admirably 
written  in  French,  which  laid  down  principles 
and  foreshadowed  proposals  that  left  no 
loophole  for  ambiguities.     The  Ten  Powers 


320       THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 

I       ——————— ■^^^^^—^—.»—i—^— ^——^ 

arrayed  against  the  Four  had  come  to  a 
perfect  understanding.  They  refused  the 
suggestion  that  both  groups  were  alike  "as 
regards  the  responsibihties  of  the  past  and, 
guarantees  for  the  future."  Their  aim  was 
to  safeguard  the  independence  of  the  peoples, 
with  right  and  humanity.  What  did  they 
demand,  therefore?  Seven  points  were  enu- 
merated, viz. — 

"The  restoration  of  Belgium,  Serbia, 
Montenegro,  with  due  compensation;  the 
evacuation  of  invaded  territories  in  France, 
Russia,  and  Rumania,  with  just  reparation; 
the  reorganisation  of  Europe,  guaranteed  by 
a  stable  regime,  based  on  respect  for  nation- 
alities, and  on  the  right  to  full  security  and 
liberty  of  economic  development  possessed  by 
all  peoples,  small  and  great;  territorial  con- 
ventions and  international  settlements  such 
as  to  guarantee  land  and  sea  frontiers  against 
unjustified  attack,  the  restitution  of  provinces 
formerly  torn  from  the  Allies  by  force  or 
against  the  will  of  the  inhabitants;  the  libera- 
tion of  the  Italians,  as  also  of  the  Slavs, 
Rumanes,  and  Czecho-Slovaks,  from  foreign 
domination;  the  setting  free  of  the  popula- 
tions subject  to  the  bloody  tyranny  of  the 
Turks,   and   the  turning  out  of  Europe  of 


AMERICA  PASSES  JUDGMENT    321 

the  Ottoman  Empire;  lastly,  the  reconstitu- 
tion  of  Poland  as  indicated  in  the  Russian 
Emperor's  manifestation  to  his  army.  And 
while  desiring  to  shield  Europe  from  the 
covetous  brutality  of  Prussian  militarism, 
the  Allies  cherished  no  design  hostile  to  the 
Germ.an  people,  whose  political  existence  they 
were  not  assailing." 

I  may  subjoin,  as  if  a  marginal  note,  that 
the  new  Russian  Government  has  published 
an  exceedingly  noble  proclamation,  which 
leaves  to  Poland  the  entire  choice  and  charge 
of  its  future  destinies.  The  Polish  national 
party,  and  its  consummate  leader,  JNI.  Roman 
Dmowski,  deserve  our  heartiest  felicitations 
on  this  reward  of  their  efforts  in  a  great 
European  cause. 

Now  we  approach  the  crowning  event  of 
the  struggle  which  has  gone  on,  with  vary- 
ing fortunes,  since  the  Petition  of  Rights  was 
signed  and  broken  by  King  Charles  I  (1628- 
1629)  down  to  the  evening  of  April  2,  1917, 
when  President  Wilson,  his  guards  about  him 
with  drawn  swords,  drove  from  the  White 
House,  Washington,  to  the  Capitol,  and  there 
addressed  the  Congress  in  session  assembled. 
The  occasion  was  to  lay  before  the  nation's 
representatives    a   motion   that    they    should 


322       THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 

empower  the  President  to  declare  a  "state 
of  war"  as  existing  between  the  United 
States  and  Germany.  The  motives  for  so 
doing  were  exhibited  in  a  docmnent  which 
will  last  while  America  remains  a  people, 
and  which  is  nothing  else  than  a  commen- 
tary, exact  and  just,  on  the  Declaration  of 
Independence. 

To  sum  up  and  to  close  the  World's 
Debate,  by  a  judgment  condemning  autocracy 
in  its  chief  representative  the  German  Kaiser, 
has  fallen  to  President  Wilson's  lot.  Thereby 
he  becomes,  after  Washington  and  Lincoln, 
the  third  Founder  of  the  LTnited  States. 
Calmly,  without  passion — "like  a  priest  at 
the  altar,"  said  one  reporter  of  the  scene, — ^lie 
delivered  his  sentence  to  all  civilised  nations 
looking  on,  while  he  drew  out  the  terrible 
indictment  of  high  crimes  which  Germany  had 
perpetrated  with  malice  aforethought.  The 
Imperial  Government  "had  put  aside  all  re- 
straints of  law  or  humanity";  and  "vessels 
of  every  kind,  whatever  their  flag,  character, 
cargo,  destination,  or  errand,  have  been  ruth- 
lessly sent  to  the  bottom,  without  thought  of 
help  or  mercy  for  those  on  board — the  vessels 
of  friendly  neutrals  along  with  those  of 
belligerents."     Hence,  "the  present  German 


AJMERICA  PASSES  JUDGMENT    323 

warfare  against  commerce  is  a  war  against 
mankind."  Each  nation  must  decide  for 
itself  how  it  will  meet  it.  "There  is  one 
choice  we  cannot  make,"  said  the  President; 
"we  will  not  choose  the  part  of  submission 
and  suffer  the  most  sacred  rights  of  our 
nation  and  our  people  to  be  ignored  and 
violated.  The  wrongs  against  which  we 
now  array  ourselves  are  not  common  wi'ongs: 
they  cut  to  the  very  root  of  human  life." 
Then  he  pronounced  the  first  part  of  his 
sentence  on  the  culprit.  "With  a  profound 
sense  of  the  solemn,  even  the  tragical, 
character  of  the  step  I  am  now  taking  .  .  . 
I  advise  that  Congress  declare  the  recent 
course  of  the  German  Imperial  Government 
to  be  in  fact  nothing  less  than  war  against 
the  Government  and  people  of  the  United 
States;  that  it  formally  accept  the  status  of 
a  belligerent  which  is  thus  thrust  upon  it; 
and  that  it  .  .  .  exert  all  its  power  and  employ 
its  resources  to  bring  the  Government  of  the 
German  Empire  to  terms  and  end  the  war." 

But  from  the  facts  President  Wilson  went 
on  to  their  cause.  "The  menace  to  peace  and 
freedom,"  so  he  declared,  "lies  in  the  exist- 
ence of  autocratic  Governments  backed  by 
organised    force   which    is    controlled   wholly 


324       THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 

by  their  will  and  not  by  the  will  of  their 
people."  He  dwelt  on  the  spying  and  the 
lying  by  which,  carried  on  from  generation 
to  generation,  a  plan  to  strike  and  conquer 
could  be  engineered;  and  he  said,  "We  are 
accepting  this  challenge  because  we  know 
that  in  such  a  Government  we  can  never  have 
a  friend,  and  that  in  its  presence  there  car^ 
be  no  assured  security  for  the  democratic 
governments  of  the  world."  Once  more,  "the 
world  must  be  made  safe  for  democracy.  Its 
peace  must  be  planted  upon  trusted  founda- 
tions of  political  liberty."  He  advocated  a 
League  of  Honour,  but  excluded  from  it 
HohenzoUerns  and  Habsburgs  by  the  stern 
remark  that  "no  autocratic  government 
could  be  trusted  to  keep  faith  within  it." 
He  gloried  in  the  new  freedom  of  the 
Russian  people,  as  he  had  already  insisted 
on  the  restoration  of  Poland  to  its  place 
among  the  nations.  He  looked  for  the 
liberation  of  Germany  itself.  The  dedication 
followed.  "The  day  has  come,"  so  ended 
this  historic  utterance,  "when  America  is 
privileged  to  spend  her  blood  and  might  for 
the  principles  that  gave  her  birth  and  the 
happiness  and  peace  she  has  treasured.  God 
helping  her,  she  can  do  no  other." 


AMERICA  PASSES  JUDGMENT     325 

On  Good  Friday,  1865,  Abraham  Lincoln 
was  murdered  in  Washington,  because  he  had 
broken  the  Slave-Power.  On  Good  Friday, 
1917,  President  Wilson  signed  the  Resolu- 
tion voted  by  Congress,  declaring  a  state  of 
war  with  Germany.  The  self-sacrifice  of 
Lincoln  and  Dr.  Wilson's  supreme  act  do 
not  differ  at  all  in  the  motive.  Both  are 
the  expression  of  Eternal  Justice,  moving  to 
its  end  by  the  laws  of  a  great  nation  and  the 
conscience  of  its  chosen  leaders.  Lincoln's 
victory  in  death  was  touching  and  sublime. 
Its  light  shines  on  the  sword  of  Righteousness 
dra^^Ti  at  length  by  President  Wilson,  des- 
tined to  protect  humanity,  and  justify  the 
ways  of  God  to  men. 


CHAPTER  XV 


The  Vision  of  Peace 


WHEN  America  joined  the  League  of 
Honour,  which  Britain  had  in  truth 
founded  on  August  4,  1914,  by  challeng- 
ing Germany  on  behalf  of  violated  Bel- 
gium, the  political  shape  of  the  future  was 
determined.  Autocracy  must  go  out,  democ- 
racy had  come  in.  That,  however,  should 
be  deemed,  not  a  Revolution  in  the  sense 
of  anarchy,  but  the  rising  to  light  and 
power  of  an  established  Catholic  principle, 
held  by  St.  Thomas  Aquinas,  Bellarmine, 
Suarez,  and  our  greatest  theologians.  For 
they  have  taught  that  always  there  is  in  the 
nation  as  such  a  fundamental  democracy, 
which  indeed  is  none  other  than  Aristotle's 
"government  of  free  men  and  equals."  More 
justly  we  might  describe  it  as  a  Restora- 
tion. I  quote  Macaulay  on  this  subject  with 
pleasure.  Reviewing  Hallam's  Constitutional 
History,  he  observes  that  "the  Constitution 
of  England  was  only  one  of  a  large  family. 

326 


THE  VISION  OF  PEACE       627 

I  1 

In  all  the  monarchies  of  western  Europe,  dur- 
ing the  Middle  Ages,  there  existed  restraints 
on  the  royal  authority,  fundamental  laws,  and 
representative  assemblies.  In  the  fifteenth 
century  the  government  of  Castile  seems  to 
have  been  as  free  as  that  of  our  own  country. 
That  of  Aragon  was  beyond  all  question  more 
so.  In  France  the  sovereign  was  more  abso- 
lute. Yet,  even  in  France,  the  States-General 
alone  could  constitutionally  impose  taxes  .  .  . 
Sweden  and  Denmark  had  constitutions  of 
a  similar  description."  Then  Macaulay  adds 
most  pointedly,  "Let  us  overleap  two  or  three 
hundred  years,  and  contemplate  Europe  at 
the  commencement  of  the  eighteenth  century. 
Every  free  constitution,  save  one,  had  gone 
down.  That  of  England  had  weathered  the 
danger,  and  was  riding  in  full  security." 

What  had  come  about  elsewhere?  Simply 
this,  that  hereditary  rulers  had  taken  to  heart 
the  political  principles  of  the  Renaissance, 
absorbed  each  in  his  own  person  all  the  powers 
of  the  State,  and  called  his  usurped  preroga- 
tives Divine  Right.  What  is  happening  now? 
The  reversal  and  overthrow  of  Renaissance 
principles  in  politics,"  by  a  movement  derived 
from  the  Catholic  Middle  Ages  surviving  in 
England,  transplanted  to  America,   and  re- 


328       THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 

turning  thence;  thus  fulfilling  better  than  he 
dreamt  the  prophetic  song  of  Shelley,  which 
I  have  partly  cited  before — 

"From  the  West  swift  Freedom  came. 
Against  the  course  of  heaven  and  doom, 
A  second  sun  arrayed  in  flame 
To  burn,  to  kindle,  to  illume." 

Many  are  the  signs  dawning  on  the  watcher 
of  stars  and  seasons  that  the  Catholic  Middle 
Ages  will  return,  purified,  enlightened,  but 
in  the  essence  of  their  faith  and  freedom 
unchanged.  Let  me  indulge  myself  in  a  formal 
scheme  of  symbols,  not  without  significance. 

The  thing  that  is  coming  to  pass,  amid 
scenes  from  the  Apocalypse  of  tragedies 
imaged  in  heaven,  is  the  change  from  the 
Tribe  to  the  City.  Not  the  supremacy  of  race 
but  the  dictates  of  reason  shall  henceforth 
rule  between  man  and  man.  Now  there  are 
three  cities,  each  chosen  by  Providence  to 
embody  and  to  realise  the  chief  different 
aspects  of  rational  humanity:  Athens,  Rome, 
Jerusalem — the  City  of  Light,  the  City  of 
Law,  and  the  City  of  God.  To  each  corre- 
sponds a  sovereign  ideal:  Liberty,  Equality, 
Fraternity — the  liberty  of  the  individual  to 
make  the  best  of  himself,  the  equality  of  all 
in  a  common  right,  the  brotherhood  of  all  as 


THE  VISION  OF  PEACE       329 

!  I 

children  of  the  same  All-Father.  Thus  we 
can  regard  Humanity  as  the  Church  in  its 
earthly  and  social  relations;  and  again,  the 
Church  as  Humanity  in  its  relations  to  its 
]Maker.  And  while  Revelation  is  an  utterly 
free  gift  beyond  man's  power,  not  simply  a 
republication  of  Natural  Religion,  but  all  that 
the  Gospel  claims  for  it,  still  grace  does  not 
destroy  Nature  but  bring  it  to  perfection, 
transfigured  with  Christ  on  Mount  Tabor. 
The  reconcilement  of  these  ideals,  each  so 
lofty  and  exacting  that  it  might  seem  to  deny 
the  others,  is  man's  task  in  time;  and  accord- 
ing to  the  degree  of  its  fulfilment  it  is  bring- 
ing us  nearer  to  the  Vision  of  Peace.  .  .  . 

To-day  Rome  is  much  in  my  thoughts. 
Or  more  truly  I  am  in  Rome,  and  in  the  spirit 
I  keep  there  the  anniversary  of  my  ordina- 
tion as  a  priest  on  May  11,  1873,  forty-four 
years  ago.  It  is  also  a  memorable  date  for 
my  venerated  Diocesan,  the  Most  Reverend 
Edward  Ilsley,  Archbishop  of  Birmingham, 
who  enters  to-day  on  his  eightieth  year.  I 
offer  his  Grace  my  respectful  homage  and  best 
wishes.  Looking  back  over  my  own  time, 
marked  by  such  great  public  calamities,  and 
seen  to  be  a  turning-point  in  the  historj''  of 
mankind,  I  discern,  it  seems  to  me,  that  all 


330       THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 

its  problems  run  up  into  one  problem,  the  re- 
conciliation of  Democracy  with  the  Catholic 
Church.  That  the  Church  and  the  People 
should  arrive  at  a  common  understanding. 
That  the  City  should  worship  Christ  in  its 
own  cathedral.  That  all  ways  should  meet  in 
Rome  at  the  Golden  Milestone,  as  they  did 
when  "the  immense  majesty  of  the  Roman 
Peace"  girdled  the  Mediterranean  with  a 
united  realm  of  one  hundred  and  twenty 
millions  no  longer  at  strife;  but  then  they  had 
a  master,  and  now  we  have  done  with  masters. 
The  Athenians  are  our  true  ancestors,  "bonds- 
men of  no  Great  King,"  but  free  men  and 
equal.  The  true  modern  king  may  be  heredi- 
tary; he  shall  not  be  absolute.  Autocracy  is 
stricken  to  death;  it  will  be  lying  under  an 
epitaph  to-morrow.  But  Rome  survives,  and 
round  about  its  "sacred  and  immemorial 
throne"  we  desire  to  see  all  the  nations  of  the 
earth  gathered  as  a  Holy  Roman  People. 

The  vision  is  for  a  time,  yet  my  faith  is  that 
it  will  come  to  be  fulfilled;  and  that  the  war 
which  ends  absolute  rulers  closes  an  era  of 
political  anarchy  to  open  one  of  many  brave 
and  beautiful  reconcilements.  I  shall  pray 
for  that  when  I  renew  my  first  Mass, — ^which 
took  place  at  the  very  Confession  of  St.  Peter 


THE  VISION  OF  PEACE       331 

in  Rome — here  in  the  English  Church  dedi- 
cated to  his  name.  And  I  shall  call  to  mind 
the  great  price  we  are  paying  for  this  new  age 
of  light,  liberty,  and  faith  in  God. 

A  dear  price  in  the  lives  of  dear  friends. 
These  are  my  dead  soldiers  of  whom  I 
make  remembrance  at  the  altar  day  by  day: 
Francis  Purcell  Warren,  George  William 
Doogan,  Nicholas  Angell,  William  Henry 
Lovell,  Harry  Winyard,  Edward  Curwen. 
The  good  Father  be  gracious  to  them,  and 
comfort  their  kindred!  Among  them  were 
to  be  found  gifts  and  accomplishments  of  no 
mean  order  in  music,  science,  and  literature. 
They  died  that  England  might  live.  Nay, 
not  England  alone,  but  all  our  youthful 
Commonwealths;  and  India,  that  shall  be 
taught  freedom  as  the  mighty  morn  gathers 
light;  and  Belgium,  that  shall  rise  again 
glorious;  and  Poland,  whose  torn  limbs  shall 
come  together  once  more  in  a  crimson  halo 
signifying  her  martyrdom  turned  to  triumph; 
and  the  innumerable  Slavs,  whom  the  Spirit 
of  God  has  quickened  so  that  they  make 
haste  to  meet  us  who  are  hastening  to  them. 
And  because  of  these  young  men  slain  when 
they  were  fighting  valiantly  in  this  world-wide 
crusade,  Ireland  shall  be  a  nation  once  again; 


332       THE  WORLD'S  DEBATE 

and  Italy  shall  enchant  our  eyes  with  her 
beauty  bred  of  the  Greek  sculpture,  flushed 
with  the  rose  of  the  Italian  heart;  and  a  way 
shall  be  found  to  bring  the  Holy  Father  and 
his  Rome  into  a  perpetual  friendship  with  the 
people  whose  greatest  glory  is  the  Chair  of 
Truth,  as  their  land  is  the  "irremovable  seat 
of  civilisation."  And  because  our  heroes  died 
joyfully,  casting  their  lives  away  with  a  laugh, 
all  these  shall  begin  the  better  time  when 
wealth  may  mean  nothing  save  the  larger 
public  service,  and  labour  mean  so  much  as 
the  enduring,  indispensable,  and  recognised 
foundation  of  the  State.  Our  Prometheus 
shall  at  last  be  unbound. 


THE  END 


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